Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

The diaphaneity of Babet contrasted with the grossness of Gueulemer. Babet was thin and learned. He was transparent but impenetrable. Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He declared that he was a chemist. He had been a jack of all trades. He had played in vaudeville at Saint-Mihiel. He was a man of purpose, a fine talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures. His occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and portraits of "the head of the State." In addition to this, he extracted teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he had owned a booth with a trumpet and this poster: "Babet, Dental Artist, Member of the Academies, makes physical experiments on metals and metalloids, extracts teeth, undertakes stumps abandoned by his brother practitioners. Price: one tooth, one franc, fifty centimes; two teeth, two francs; three teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity." This _Take advantage of this opportunity_ meant: Have as many teeth extracted as possible. He had been married and had had children. He did not know what had become of his wife and children. He had lost them as one loses his handkerchief. Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the world to which he belonged. [Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), Volume III – Marius; Book Seventh – Patron Minette, Chapter III, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse.]

Poetry

When I close a book / I open life. / I hear / faltering cries / among harbours. / Copper ignots / slide down sand-pits / to Tocopilla. / Night time. / Among the islands / our ocean / throbs with fish, / touches the feet, the thighs, / the chalk ribs / of my country. / The whole of night / clings to its shores, by dawn / it wakes up singing / as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling. / The wind / calls me / and Rodriguez calls, / and Jose Antonio-- / I got a telegram / from the "Mine" Union / and the one I love / (whose name I won't let out) / expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able / to wrap me in paper, / to fill me up / with typography, / with heavenly imprints / or was ever able / to bind my eyes, / I come out of books to people orchards / with the hoarse family of my song, / to work the burning metals / or to eat smoked beef / by mountain firesides. / I love adventurous / books, / books of forest or snow, / depth or sky / but hate / the spider book / in which thought / has laid poisonous wires / to trap the juvenile / and circling fly. / Book, let me go. / I won't go clothed / in volumes, / I don't come out / of collected works, / my poems / have not eaten poems-- / they devour / exciting happenings, / feed on rough weather, / and dig their food / out of earth and men. / I'm on my way / with dust in my shoes / free of mythology: / send books back to their shelves, / I'm going down into the streets. / I learned about life / from life itself, / love I learned in a single kiss / and could teach no one anything / except that I have lived / with something in common among men, / when fighting with them, / when saying all their say in my song.

[Pablo Neruda, “Ode to the Book”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

The main purpose of the music and accompanying essays on this site is to illustrate the distinctions that are human values. If the listener “hears” the value in the music – even if only after reading the accompanying exegesis – then this project’s main purpose has been achieved. Sometimes, a composition, a performance or an artist “nails it”. So it is with Paolo Angeli, who plays a prepared Sardinian guitar, which can be bowed or plucked/strummed. “Whatever you want to call it, nobody else is doing it quite like this. Paolo Angeli, the Sardinian sorcerer, manually magics beautiful, multi-layered music from his unique prepared guitar: a hybrid orchestra of an instrument with strings going in all directions, foot-pedal-controlled motorised propellers and hammers to create shimmering drones and bass-lines as he bows, strikes, plucks and strums while producing rhythmic atmospherics by treading on a plastic bag and adjusting tunings on the fly.” His influences seem to come from everywhere. His Sardinian guitar is “a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument that looks like a guitar crossed with a cello, and has virtually orchestral capabilities. Angeli’s custom creation has been fitted cross-wise and lengthwise with additional strings: cello strings and drone strings, and has numerous other inventions attached to it, including hammers, pedals, and some propellers at variable speed. Then there’s his array of effects, controlled by both his feet and hands. These custom modifications enable him to become a crazy-awesome one-man band, as he draws on Sardinian folk music, jazz, flamenco, Arabic suggestions, post-folk and contemporary classical music in his compositions.” Playing with a bow, Angeli creates a sound similar to a cello’s, with a feel of introspection, a mood to which the cello is naturally suited. This style points out the close relationship between self-worth (think of Bach’s solo cello suites) and inner integrity. What make for fun and fascinating listening are the intricacy of his instrument and his musical ideas. Each of his albums could be categorized under a separate value but doing that would overlook his genius, which resides in his original and groundbreaking approach to music, and his unwillingness to stay put. Here are links to his releases, his playlists, a New Sounds documentary, an NPR documentary, and some videos.

Violinist Nigel Kennedy has infused jazz, rock, and folk music into his “classical” interpretations, as illustrated by his playlists. “With his breathtaking technique and penchant for blending classical with jazz, rock, and more, Nigel Kennedy is both a maverick of the classical world and one of the biggest violin superstars of his generation.” “'For the first years of study I did everything I was told and really didn’t make any progress at all, but by the time I was eleven or twelve, I started doing things for myself.' For one, Kennedy started to get interested in the world of jazz, and he left the Menuhin school to attend the Tanglewood summer school and subsequently the Juilliard School of Music. 'This took me right to the very doorstep of the thriving New York jazz fraternity. The energy coming out of some of the clubs was wonderful, the freedom for musicians to enjoy what they were playing, to actually express themselves, was absolutely brilliant.'”

Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerti, BWV 1046-1051 (1721) (approx. 91-99’) “were . . . groundbreaking, generating new sounds and new possibilities that Bach’s contemporaries could not ignore. In them Bach brought together the widest possible combination of instruments (different for each concerto), combining them in daring partnerships.” Bach composed these concerti to display his compositional skills – he was looking for work. This performance, by Václav Luks and Collegium 1704, took place at Köthen Castle, where Bach was employed from 1717 to 1723. Top audio-recorded performances are by Busch & Busch Chamber Players in 1935, Reiner with an unnamed chamber ensemble in 1949, Casals & Marlboro Festival Orchestra in 1964, Karl Richter & Münchener Bach-Orchester in 1967, Marriner & Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1971, Paillard & Orchestre de Chambre Paillard in 1973, Pinnock & English Concert in 1982, Geobel & Musica Antiqua Köln in 1987, Savall & Les Concerts des Nations in 1991, Pearlman & Boston Baroque in 1993, Alessandrini & Concerto Italiano in 2005, Pinnock & European Brandenburg Ensemble in 2007, Egarr & Academy of Ancient Music in 2009, and Gardiner & English Baroque Soloists in 2009.

In his Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123 (1943) (approx. 37-40’), Hungarian composer Béla Bartók incorporated folk themes and contemporary art music. Bartók wrote: “The general mood of the work represents – apart from the jesting second movement – a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.” 

Edwin Fischer was a classical pianist known for his expressiveness, intellectual rigor and depth of understanding; of course, he was also a supremely gifted pianist. “He spoke little of technique, as musical understanding was his first concern. However, his own technical apparatus was formidable. (His physical) features, matched by his uncanny musical sense and sensitivity to color, gave him an extraordinary technique from the emotional standpoint: he could project eloquently any mood he wished to express musically.” In music, this combination of high-level thinking, deep emotion and skill is the essence of well-roundedness. Here is a link to his playlists. 

Eclecticism: 

“Aga Ujma is a captivating individual, both her music and personality brim with a childlike openness but also a hint of a fairytale darkness beneath the autumnal warmth. Her sound follows the contemporary folk cannon of Bjork, Múm, Eivør, CocoRosie and Current 93, blending traditional folk with minimal avant-garde production methods and Eastern instrumentation. Her glacial vocals, underpinned by the delicate plucking of an Indonesian sasando, make her EP a beautiful homage to two very different places that are close to her heart. Aga was born in a sleepy town in the South West of Poland, to parents who were ‘quite conservative but open-minded at the same time’ - a duality reflected in her music.” This is reflected in her album, “Songs of Innocence and Experience” (2021) (28’).

SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States) explores and offers “an eclectic and diverse blend of electro-acoustic music and music-oriented forms, including fixed media electro-acoustic works, works composed for real-time interactive performance, works combining sound and video, and sound installations.” An extensive compilation of their music is linked here. 

Jean-Pierre Rampal was a medical doctor, and a great 20th-century flautist. Here are links to his a documentary film, his playlists, and a discussion of his life and work.

Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz 106, BB 114 (1936) (approx. 30-39’): “it is simultaneously primitive and sophisticated; wild and controlled; serene and terrifying; serious and slapstick.” This makes it music of eclectics, if not necessarily ecletic music. Bartók composed it as the right wing was taking a firm grip on much of Europe. 

Charles Ives was an amateur composer; his main career and source of income was life-insurance executive. He composed four symphonies, four violin sonatas, three orchestral sets, eleven sets for chamber orchestra, and other works. 

If you listen to the music of Stuart Saunders Smith, then probably you are a percussionist, an eclectic, or both. Smith has composed music for drums of many kinds, vibraphone, xylophone, gongs, marimba, timpani, temple blocks, glockenspiel and spoken voice. A six-CD set of his music is called “At Seventy: The Percussion Music of Stuart Saunders Smith” (2020) (373’):

• Volume 1 (2020) (65’)
• Volume 2 (2020) (69’)
• Volume 3 (2020)
• Volume 4 (2020)
• Volume 5 (2020) (72’)
• Volume 6 (2020)

Whether George Frideric Händel’s Solomon, HWV 67 (1748) (approx. 150-161’) (text) was truly a well-rounded person is not the point: Handel’s apparent intent was to portray him as one, highlighting a significant character trait in each of the oratorio’s three parts. “With its hieratic double choruses, it is on one level a sumptuous pageant: a glorification of kingship (the contrast with the boorish, unloved George II could hardly have been more pointed) and an idealised golden age of peace, piety and prosperity.” Performances feature Scholl (McCreesh) in 1998, Davies (McCreesh) in 2012, Watkinson (Gardiner) in 1985, Engeltjes (Dijkstra) in 2022, and Lowrey (Alarcón) in 2023.

Other works:

• Steven Ricks, Reconstructing the Lost Improvisations of Aldo Pilestri (1683–1727) (2019) (approx. 14 ‘): “. . . Ricks employs the same method of ducking in and out of genre worlds. We peek into near-quotation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and out again, where the next gesture might be an atonal solo or a whirl of contending, entangled voices.” 

Albums:

• Steve Tibbetts, “Hellbound Train: An Anthology” (2022) (127’): “The Minnesota guitarist and composer has created a near-five decade body of work that straddles several genres (jazz, folk, rock, ambient, various types of world musics) without sitting comfortably in any of them.”
• J.D. Sparr Electric Bands, “Electric Bands” (2019) (47’): this is “music of a mixed classical and eclectic character . . .” [Don Lerman, p. 264.]
• Joji Hirota, “Prayer’s Tale: Taiko Drums and Asian Percussion” (2021) (68’): “Single-handedly playing 40 different Japanese and Asian instruments, combined with vocals, he weaves sounds of nature, emotions and colours of the universe into a beautiful soundscape.”
• Maciej Zimka, “Out of the Circle” (2021) (48’): for Lawrence Welk fans, listening to an accordion would not have reflected eclectic tastes; listening to this would have.
• Diego Rivera, “Love and Peace” (2023) (58’): “Rivera wrote eight of the eleven tracks on the record. By turns his compositions are sturdy, spirited, and elegant vehicles, ranging from the genial hard-bop of 'Lovely' to the wild celebratory air of 'Ganas' to the graceful, folk-like melody of 'La Malinche.'”
• Margharita Fava, “Tatatu” (2023) (46’) draws on many influences.
• Alfonso Scarano & Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, “Sound, Echo, and Silence” (2023) (66’) presents music of Narong Prangcharoen, which reflects a high level of musical intelligence and a fascinating eclecticism.
• Alexander Hawkins & Sofia Jernberg, “Musho” (2024) (51’): “Soft and crystalline, a music of edges, silence and tangential shoots, Musho dwells in these questions, invites the listener to consider displacement, migration, identity, responsibility, bloody history, the seepage of culture and community, but more than that, invites listening.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

Most of these songs and other brief tracks bend or blend genres:

• Beck, “Loser” (lyrics)
• Medeski Martin & Wood, "Bubblehouse"
• Tom Waits, "Jockey Full of Bourbon" (lyrics)
• Herbie Hancock, "Chameleon"
• Gotye, "Somebody That I Used to Know" (lyrics)
• Esperanza Spalding, "I Know You Know" (lyrics)

Visual Arts

Film and Stage