The emerging springtime reminds us that all things have their season: a time to arrive and a time to leave; times to hold on and times to let go; times to act on and times to let alone. Love is why I came here in the first place. Love is now the reason I must go. [John Denver, “Seasons of…
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Value for Friday of Week 43 in the season of Assessing
Unifying
Unification is about bringing people together in harmony. It is also about bringing the elements of life and self together in harmony.
- . . . if you realize all the time what’s kind of wonderful – that is, if we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience – every once in a while, we have these integrations when everything’s pulled together into a unification, in which it turns out to be simpler than it looked before. [Richard P. Feynman]
- The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety. [attributed to Felix Mendelssohn]
- . . . there is no better way for kids to learn critical thinking skills, communication skills, things like empathy and tolerance. This is true across every boundary, across cultural boundaries, across socioeconomic, it’s a great leveler in terms of unifying our world. [attributed to Emma Walton Hamilton]
- Each person does see the world in a different way. There is not a single, unifying, objective truth. We’re all limited by our perspective. [attributed to Siri Hustvedt]
Much of the writing on unification is about unity in business. There is also unification of a nation and its people. Unification within can also be called personal integration.
Real
True Narratives
By all accounts, Abigail and John Adams personified unity of purpose in their marriage of fifty-four years and their public lives.
- Joseph J. Ellis, First Family: Abigail & John Adams (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).
- Margaret A. Hogan, C. James Taylor and Joseph J. Ellis, eds., My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams (Belknap Press, 2007).
- Woody Holton, Abigail Adams (Thorndike Press, 2010).
- Edith B. Gelles, Abigail and John: Portrait of a Marriage (William Morrow, 2009).
- David McCullough, John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
- John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Unification of life through art:
- Wynton Marsalis, Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (Random House, 2008).
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011): utilizing conflicts between intuitive and deliberative thinking to develop a two-systems approach to thought.
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Ludwig van Beethoven composed the seven movements of his String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 (1826) (approx. 35-42’) (list of recorded performances), to be played together in sequence, without significant pause between the movements. “Set in seven movements which flow together in a continuous musical stream, the Op. 131 Quartet turns the traditional string quartet form on its head.” “With . . . typically, the longest duration of any of his quartets, Op. 131 would seem to be Beethoven's most expansive utterance. All seven movements are played without pause creating a single giant continuous structure embracing an initial somber but lyrical fugue, two vibrant scherzi, a colossal theme and variations, connective recitative, a wisp of heartbreaking adagio and a dazzling finale cresting in mountainous developments alongside the most delicate, visceral, effervescent and tensile textures imaginable.” In addition and perhaps more important, “for the first time in Beethoven’s music there is as emphatic and unmistakable thematic connection between the first movement and the last, not a reminiscence, but a functional parallel which helps bind the whole work together.” Top recorded performances are by Busch Quartet in 1936, Budapest String Quartet in 1961 ***, Amadeus Quartet in 1963, Quartetto Italiano in 1969, Alban Berg Quartet in 1981, Takács Quartet in 2005, Jasper String Quartet in 2013, Dover Quartet in 2022, Arianna String Quartet in 2023, and Narratio Quartet in 2025.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, String Quintets (list of recorded performances):
- No. 1 in B-flat Major, K 174 (1773) (approx. 24’) (list of recorded performances);
- No. 2 in C Minor, K 406 (1787) (approx. 20-23’) (list of recorded performances);
- No. 3 in C Major, K 515 (1787) (approx. 27-31’) (list of recorded performances);
- No. 4 in G Minor, K 516 (1787) (approx. 32-34’) (list of recorded performances);
- No. 5 in D Major, K 593 (1790) (approx. 24-28’) (list of recorded performances); and
- No. 6 in E-flat Major, K 614 (1791) (approx. 22’) (list of recorded performances).
Other compositions:
- Henri Dutilleux, Trois Préludes (1973/1988) (approx. 15’) (list of recorded performances): “. . . distilling innovations from the post-war era and a notable instance of Duilleux’s ability to harness nominally disparate items into a unified conception.”
· György Ligeti, String Quartet No. 2 (1968) (approx. 20-21’) (list of recorded performances): “In order to display the process of change, Ligeti’s music presupposes an imaginary axis designating relationships of opposition. The extreme ends of this axis represent states of simplicity and complexity.” “In this piece, a unifying theme persists throughout all five movements. However, this theme is not a melody or a leitmotif as an earlier composer might have used to bind a work together. Rather, it is a commitment to an idea of texture: several instruments are engaged in a single texture, wherein they sometimes meld together almost into unanimity, and at other times drift apart and become more distinct from one another, but never lose their textural similarity.”
Albums:
- Doug Carn, “Adam’s Apple” (1974) (44’): soulful spirituality from an African-American perspective at a remarkably unique time in U.S. history
- Firasso, “Tales” (2021) (49’): “The group unites a classical clarinetist, an accordion player specialised in ‘new music’ and a jazz double bassist. Together, they fuse a post-genre mix of music which draws on the musical vocabulary of tango, klezmer, Balkan music and French musette.” This is a musical version of e pluribus, unum – from many, one.
- Grosse Isle, “Le bonhomme sept heures / The Bonesetter” (2021) (48’): Grosse Isle is an island in the St. Lawrence river in Québec, which served as a refuge for people escaping the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. The album brings together music from Québec and Ireland, as happened when these two cultures intermingled in Canada in the 19th century.
- Roxana Amed, “Unánime” (2022) (58’): “‘Beyond the common translation of ‘unanimous,’ to me, Unánime means one soul, one voice, one heart,’ Roxana explains. ‘All the different guests on this album, although coming from different countries, are still united in the love for North American Jazz. And there is also this ‘Latin sound’ blending with that other tradition, no matter from where we come.'”
- Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brotto, “Instant” (2022) (43’): “Ablaye Cissoko enjoys collaborating with musicians from other genres and traditions. This time, he combines the ancient griot traditions of West Africa’s kora with French folk music through the sounds of the diatonic accordion.” Cissoko says: “I am open and attentive to music and other musicians from all over the world. That is where I find stability and inspiration for my own music. My duo project with Cyrille embodies two histories, two cultures, two horizons and two landscapes. While playing I visualise Cyrille in his mountains and me with my large Mande family on the Atlantic coast of Saint-Louis in Senegal. It soothes me.” Equally compelling is their album “Djiyo” (2025) (44’): “With a human message, and with human-presented themes about relationships and recognitions, desires for freedom, Ablaye and Cyrill delve into eternal themes, musically introducing the listener to the world of the sweet tones of the instruments they play and the atmosphere they create all the time.”
- Anat Cohen, “Quartetinho” (2022) (57’): “rhapsodic interplay” among the members of the “little quartet” set the album’s character.
- Anders Jormin, “Pasado en claro” (2023) (58’): “Jazz, classical, and folk music genres are blended beautifully by Swedish double bassist Anders Jormin with Lena Willemark on vocals and violin, Karin Nakagawa on 25-string koto, and Jon Fält on drums and percussion. These pieces are graceful and imaginative and move through a rainbow of moods, from yearning to ecstatic.”
- The Michael Bank Septet, “The Dao of Swing” (2013) (41’): “The title . . . might be read on the surface as ‘The Way To Swing,’ but it suggests something more profound: that happy unity when the musicians connect with the deeper rhythms of the universe. An ambitious aspiration, but Michael Bank’s Septet makes it come alive.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Brotherhood of Man, “United We Stand” (lyrics)
- U2, “One” (lyrics)
