My first classical music book (with CD)

Price: €9.00

Isabelle has always been fairly interested in classical music – she calls it “ballet music” and, seeing as she’s planning to be a ballerina when she grows up (as well as a princess and a power ranger), she often requests it so she can practice her ballet dancing. Or, rather, practice a kind of dancing she’s dreamed up herself that she calls “ballet”, since she’s never been to a ballet lesson (yet) and has never actually seen the real thing. It looks fairly convincing to me, I must say, but I’ve never been to a lesson or seen a ballet myself, so I guess my opinion doesn’t count for much.

Anyway, her aunt Dervilia, who’s studying music in university, bought her this book-and-CD when the two of them were about to go on a long car journey, and it took her interest to a whole new level. Bedtime stories went out the window for a while, instead she preferred to sit and listen to a few tunes from this while looking at the book (and asking me incessant questions, like “why was Tchaikovsky sad?” and “why did Beethoven have twenty children?”), and she’ll happily sit and listen to the whole hour-plus if you give her a chance. Her favourites change regularly – John Adams was an early one, then she fixated on Handel’s “Fireworks” for a while, and lately it’s been Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King”. She kindly concedes to put Stravinsky on for me because she knows I especially like him. Even now, a good few months later, we probably listen to a chunk from the book together at least once a week, and it works really well as a wind-down if she’s got herself over-excited or just needs to sit down for a while.

There’s some really clever things about this package. The book is basically a picture book – colourful, animal-based action-packed illustrations with little snippets of information on each composer or instrument – and it’s perfect for engaging a little mind that might otherwise drift while listening to instrumental music. The music is in 3-minute chunks, which makes the whole thing easily digestable for kids (and their parents), and most of it is great – Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (you know, the kinda scary organ music that goes “DEDEDE dededededuuuuuuude”), one of Brahm’s Hungarian Dances, a lovely little Mozart piano sonata, etc., etc. Most people will find one or two familiar tunes here, even if you don’t listen to classical music – and if you don’t, this is a great introduction for an adult too.