Pic of the Week: Deck the Halls with Koussevitzky Edition

Installation photo by Pat Padua.

Head of Acquisitions and Processing Denise Gallo recently pointed out the ingenuity of her staff’s  Christmas tree, festively adorned with photocopied highlights from the Music Division’s deep coffers. The elves who assembled this holiday centerpiece were the music specialists and technicians who work in the archival processing section.  Gallo notes that the tree is also constructed of  ”miniature archival folders and boxes, a tiny box full of Christmas music (yes, tiny pieces of sheet music!) sent to the Music Division by Santa at the North Pole, and a garland made up of paper clips and the leftover nubs of used pencils (the erasers look amazingly like colored lights!)” How many of the artists pictured can you name without peeking at the credits below?

Revisit our previous Christmas musings on “Jingle Bells” and “White Christmas,”  and don’t miss the young Gerry Mulligan’s Christmas tree. And from our friends across the transom in Recorded Sound, enjoy this week’s Record of the Week from the National Juekbox, ”The Night before Christmas” performed by Len Spencer & Gilbert Girard.

In the Muse wishes everyone a happy and safe holiday season.

Photo credits, counter-clockwise from center:

• Scrapbook page with a photograph of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, in the late 1940s.  Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Collection. Donated by Lucie Arnaz. Rights to the images in the photographs and scrapbook items in this collection are the sole property of Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr./Desilu, too, LLC.
• Franz Liszt, ca. 1850. Reproduced in James Huneker’s Franz Liszt (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911; page 36).
• detail from Bernstein in his apartment at 32 W. 10th St., New York City, September 11, 1947. Photographer: Victor Kraft.
• Serge Koussevitzky, half-length portrait. Prints and Photographs Division.  See also the Serge Koussevitzky Archive.
• Erick Hawkins in El Penitente. Photograph by Barbara Morgan. Reproduced with permission of Janet Morgan/The Barbara Morgan Archive. For further information e-mail morganarchives[at]gmail.com Reproduced with permission of Martha Graham Resources, a division of The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, www.marthagraham.org.