A Classic Tale: Music for Our Children
On occasions when parenthood seems less rewarding than it ought to, discs like A Classic Tale can be a balm. You may be unable to escape a day without scraping peanut butter from your computer keyboard, but at least you can listen in as Sharon Stone, Cher, and Samuel L. Jackson swerve, momentarily, from their larger-than-life personas to serve up a trio of classical works for kids. Stone narrates Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with a forest full of finely tuned, actorly nuances. Next comes Cher, leading the band for Benjamin Britten's classic A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with enough lightness to even out a sometimes overly earnest piece; and Jackson brings up the rear, generating the necessary air of gravity for Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, a history lesson set to music. High-wattage vocal talent aside, the music's the thing here. The maestro James Levine conducts the Orchestra of St. Luke's, among the country's most celebrated chamber orchestras, throughout this record's moody repertoire. For the classical beginners and kids under 10 of all stripes, what wafts through and around these words is an irresistible intro course. It's a good-looking gift, too--A Classic Tale comes bundled in a chunky board book complete with lyrics, a letter to parents, and even a coloring page. --Tammy La Gorce
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