Rachmaninoff for the preschool set

On the way home from preschool, KWAX started to play Rachmaninoff's First Symphony, and D. was immediately enraptured. He ended up listening to the whole 40 minutes, in the car and then on the couch. He knows, from Elmo's "Peter and the Wolf," that music can tell a story. What a story he heard! He told me there were dragons, a castle, and a "Lizard of the World." Then there were "people coming out and getting ready to go somewhere," eventually "a king and queen marrying each other," and "a dinosaur running at another dinosaur to eat him for his lunch, or breakfast." I read on-line that the premiere of the symphony failed miserably, plunging Rachmaninoff into deep depression. I hope he would have been gratified with all the "wow!"s he got from a four-year-old today.

We have the "Baby Mozart," "Baby Bach," and "Baby Beethoven" videos, along with several others in the series, all scored with classical music. I wonder if the world is ready for "Baby Rachmaninoff." I should see if D. likes Rimsky-Korsakov too: "Scheherazade" is a lot like what we heard today.