Classical composers are rarely made the subject of merchandising deals, whether it be hats, toilet seat covers or bobbleheads, at least not living composers (I'm lookin' at you, anime'd Beethoven statuette). There is, of course, one exception among contemporary composers, and that is previous Forgotten Leaves-'er George Crumb, whose gorgeously hand-engraved scores have been made into posters and t-shirts that you can buy from the fine folks at Sheet Music Plus. Of course, those score samples are from movements he engraved in the shape of spirals and peace signs, so they'd be a more natural fit for a dorm room poster than the opening to Webern's piano Variations. While this blatant extramusical flair, along with "stunts" such as amplification, extended techniques, wearing masks and spatial trickery, has gotten Crumb the ire of a large percentage of the American composition scene I still think Crumb is one of the great creative minds working in Classical music and I'll defend his goofier ideas until the end of time. Crumb might also raise the ire of some classical purists in that he wasn't above writing some Christmas music, his contribution to the oeuvre de Noël being A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 for piano. Inspired by the nativity frescoes of Giotto di Bodone's famous 1305 cycle in Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the piece manages to accurately depict the wonder and mystery of the Nativity using many of Crumb's favorite techniques, and three of the inner movements are leaf-sized, making it that much easier for me to show those techniques off.
(Click to enlarge)
This first movement, "Berceuse for the Infant Jesus", is a bit of a cheat as I had to photoshop the page together from two lines splayed across two pages, but it's easy to see its leafy qualities. It's the definition of simplicity, little more than three bars of music repeated twice with slight variations, but it shows off Crumb's dramatic imagination quite well. The left hand figuratively plucks an E-sus harp with an added B-flat below while the right hand lilts a melody in the black-key pentatonic mode; this is followed by a ppp overtone thunk (achieved by placing the fingers on the strings at precise points and then playing the keys with the other hand), something stirring under a manger crib.
(Click to enlarge)
"The Shepherds' Noël" features a bit more inside-the-pianoing, such as plucking the strings with a fingernail and running the fingertips along a block of strings. The "B" section switches from distant echoes to mild braying, an effective bit of tone-painting for the sheep that wouldn't shut up for the best Christmas ever.
(Click to enlarge; ignore the black dots)
"Adoration of the Magi" is the only leaf-sized movement to be a direct depiction of one of the frescoes (the others being depictions of seasonal themes inspired by the cycle) and is the most spirited of the bunch, letting the pianist dance a bit on the black keys while stopping them with his fingers, creating a percussive, pseudo-pizzicato effect. It also features probably the most difficult effect in the piece, balancing a plucked string with a harmonic with a plucked string normale, theoretically achieving a very metallic minor 9th. After a spooky interlude the Magi realize how important the baby they trekked across the desert to see is and the pianist slaps the bass strings with his palm, setting off a celebratory pseudo-canon in opposing pentatonic modes. One lesson we learn from Crumb is that concentration of ideas is key to memorability and, in many cases, likability, and the Little Suite for Christmas is not only a great addition to Crumb's piano music but also one of the easiest of his pieces to perform, making me wonder why I don't hear it more often around this time of year. The best performance I could find on YouTube features a number of frescoes from the cycle, so you too can marvel at how much money the church spent on getting Giotto all that hard-to-make blue paint. Here's wishing you all a Merry Crumbmas!
~PNK
Thank you!
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