a nashional menagerie

Santa brought Claire a CD she has been enjoying for a couple days . . . and so have I. :) It's Classics for Children, done by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, with narration by Hugh Downs. (I enjoy his voice.)

The first track is about 16 minutes of Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, with Downs reading Ogden Nash's poems written for the composition . . . it's great. Claire liked the puns she understood, but mostly loved the patter of Nash's language, and was full of wonder that the music "matched" the animals so well.

Tonight (after she was asleep) I got Ogden Nash's Zoo down from my bookcase. I was surprised to see from the inscription in front that my mom and dad gave it to me for Christmas exactly twenty years ago! I got so excited I wanted to wake Claire right up, but I didn't, because I'm not crazy. Just excitable. :D

 

Anyway, I think I'm going to have to order The Best of Ogden Nash (which I stumbled upon online, and which just came out about a year ago) because it looks really good, and I hope Claire will eventually grow into him completely. I'd like a print copy of the these poems he did for Carnival of the Animals, which are in this compilation. One of the "animals" is the pianist. :) Here is Nash's poem for them:

Some claim that pianists might be human
And quote the case of Mr. Truman.
Saint-Saëns, upon the other hand,
Considered them a scurvy band.
Ape-like they are, he said, and simian,
Instead of normal men and wimian.

I was very surprised a bit later to hear what I took to be A Postcard to Henry Purcell, which is my favorite track from the wonderful Pride & Prejudice soundtrack.  I was surprised because I thought that A Postcard to Henry Purcell was composed by Dario Marianelli, but the track I was listening to was The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten.

I went online, and discovered that Henry Purcell, an English baroque composer, wrote music for a tragedy called Abdelazar in 1677. Britten's The Young Person's Guide is based on a theme from this Abdelazar music by Purcell, and then Marianelli's Postcard to Henry Purcell is a version of this same theme. I thought that was interesting.  They're all very haunting and lovely.

I think collections of classical music for babies and kids are not always great, and that sometimes it's better to just get a good symphonic recording than a special compilation made just for little ears . . . but Santa done good with this one, and I recommend it to you without hesitation. :)