Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Poetry

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,— / The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: / Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms / 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, / Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge / Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. / 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly / Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:— / So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, / This close-companioned inarticulate hour /    When twofold silence was the song of love.

[Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Silent Noon”]

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies, —
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

[Sara Teasdale, “Peace”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Louis Stewart was a jazz guitarist with a serene style of playing. Here is a link to his releases.

Sun-Mi Hong is a jazz drummer who creates a “perceptibly tranquil, dreamily meditative soundscape . . .” Here is a link to her albums and singles.

Musical offerings:

• John Rutter, Requiem (1985) (approx. 36.): “It is intimate rather than grand, contemplative and lyric rather than dramatic, consolatory rather than grim, approachable rather than exclusive. I suppose that some will find the sense of comfort and consolation in it facile, but it was what I meant at the time I wrote it, in the shadow of a bereavement of my own.” Performances are conducted by Brown, Cleobury and Rutter.
• John Luther Adams, In the White Silence (1998) (75’): “White is not the absence of color. It is the fullness of light. Silence is not the absence of sound. It is the presence of stillness.” “Like many of Adams's previous works (this work) is an example of his concept of 'sonic geography,' through which he attempts to realize the notion of music as place and place as music and reveals his obsession with the 'treeless, windswept expanses of the Arctic.”
• Steven Halpern, “Ocean of Bliss” album (2020) (80’) and “Ocean of Bliss, Vol. 2” album (2022) (68’)
• Steven Halpern, “Lake Suite” (2004) (78’)
• Steven Halpern, “Inner Peace” album (2002) (60’)
• Steven Halpern, “Serenity Suite” album (1999) (60’)
• Liquid Mind, “Relax” album (2003) (64’)
• Ludovico Einaudi, “Waves” albums, vol. 1 (2003) (383’); vol. 2 (384’)
• Brian Eno, “New Space Music” album (1993) (61’)
• Pēteris Vasks, Musica Serena (2015) (approx. 10’)
• Seckou Keita, “22 Strings/Cordes” album (2015) (50’)
• Bobo Stenson Trio, “Serenity” (2000) (90’) album
• David Starobin, “Giulio Regondi: A 200th Birthday Bouquet” (2023) (57’): “Though his music has come to light only in recent decades, Giulio Regondi was unquestionably the greatest of the 19th century composer-guitarists, the author of works that combine technical brilliance, warmth of spirit and rich melodic invention.”

(from nature itself) Echoes of Nature:

• Waterfall
• Ocean Waves: Pleasant Beach
• Rainforest
• Wilderness River: Big River, Streamside Songbirds, and Crickets and Water

Other nature sound tracks:

• Tropical beach sounds
• Gentle stream sounds
• Forest river sounds
• Rainforest sounds
• Forest birds sounds
• Gentle wind in mountains sounds
• Wind in the trees sounds

From the shadow side: Contemporary chamber music is characteristically unsettled, usually reflecting anxiety and worry. Here are several examples:

• Krzysztof Penderecki, chamber music, performed by the Tippett Quartet, Tale Quartet, Silesian String Quartet, and Quatuor Molinari

From the dark side:

• Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73 (1946) (approx. 28-31’): "Presented as a 'war quartet’, Shostakovich initially supported the idea of a program by giving subtitles to each of the movements: ‘Calm unawareness of the future cataclysm’; ‘Rumblings of unrest and anticipation’; ‘The forces of war are unleashed’; ‘Homage to the dead’; and ‘The eternal question: why and to what purpose?’. These descriptions, barely adequate to describe the moods of each movement, were withdrawn by Shostakovich almost immediately: he gave no explanation.”
• Historically, Brazil is a difficult place. Cláudio Santoro, who lived there during the 20th century, composed fourteen symphonies, most of them unsettled and restless. Whether they reflect turmoil in Brazil during that time, or turmoil within himself, they illustrate an opposite of serenity, in music – especially the latest ones. They include: Symphony No. 5 (1955) (approx. 34’); Symphony No. 9 (1982) (approx. 25’); Symphony No. 11 (approx. 17’); Symphony No. 12 (approx. 26’).

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Nawang Khechog, “Quiet Mind”
• Alexander Scriabin (composer), Prelude in D-flat Major, Op. 11, No. 15 (“Raindrop Prelude”)

From the dark side:

• Gabriel Kahane, Die Traumdeutung (Dream Interpretation) (lyrics) (anxiety)

Visual Arts

• Henri Matisse, Luxury, Serenity and Pleasure (1904)
• Isaac Levitan, Above the Eternal Tranquility (1894)
• Ivan Aivazovsky, Seashore (1843)

Film and Stage