Little Tree

Program Notes:

In this delightful and intimate poem, a young child welcomes a little tree into the house, to be dressed and lovingly made into something spectacular and meaningful.

Conductor Notes:

In addition to performing this as written, we’ve done the lovely version for piano, flute, harp and cello. Using available instruments at that performance, we used violin on the flute part and amalgamated the harp and piano parts. At a later performance with a guest piano trio, we modified it for violin, cello, and piano, in which the pianist played an amalgamation of the piano and harp parts. I love the childlike wonder that this poem and Mark’s setting evoke. Lots of possibilities to work on “storytelling” in this piece. A performer and audience favourite.

Text:

E. E. Cummings “Little Tree”