GMG Classical Music Forum

The Music Room => General Classical Music Discussion => Topic started by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 01:32:59 AM

Title: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 01:32:59 AM
Aside from the big names and their warhorses, what other works of this kind are worth checking out? Do you have any favorites (big names and their warhorses included, this time)?
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: North Star on May 18, 2017, 04:43:06 AM
Obviously among my favourites: Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye and L'enfant et les sortilèges. Schumann's Kinderszenen too. And Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ  0:)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Sergeant Rock on May 18, 2017, 05:01:14 AM
Elgar Wand of Youth, Dream Children and Nursery Suite.

[asin] B000OMCIVI[/asin]
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: mc ukrneal on May 18, 2017, 05:15:37 AM
Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 01:32:59 AM
Aside from the big names and their warhorses, what other works of this kind are worth checking out? Do you have any favorites (big names and their warhorses included, this time)?
Assuming you mean the Prokofiev and Saint-Saens here (and not replicating what's already been said):
Tchaikovsky: Album pour enfants
Chaminade: Album pour enfants
Debussy: Children's Corner
Bizet: Jeux d'enfants

This album would be an ideal starting point for this sort of thing:
[asin]B00001X59W[/asin]
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2017, 05:40:08 AM
Ligeti - Lontano (the opening and closing of "a window on long submerged dream worlds of childhood")
Stockhausen - Gesang der Jungling


But Kinderszenen is the first and greatest
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Karl Henning on May 18, 2017, 05:51:45 AM
Dallapiccola, Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera

http://www.youtube.com/v/Kb6PxV6f4C4
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 09:31:04 AM
Thank you all for the recs, will check them asap.

By big names I meant Schumann, Faure, Ravel, Prokofiev, Saint-Saens, maybe even Bizet and Tchaikovsky.

Heitor Villa-Lobos has two nice piano suites titled A prole do bebe (The baby's family).

There's also Mendelssohn's  Kinderstücke op. 72, Deodat de Severac's En vacances (premier recueil) and Le soldat de plomb --- I highly recommend them.

My all time favorites are Kinderszenen, Album fur de Jugend, Dolly, Jeux d'enfants (Bizet) and the above mentioned En vacances

Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 09:45:14 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 18, 2017, 05:51:45 AM
Dallapiccola, Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera

http://www.youtube.com/v/Kb6PxV6f4C4

This is nice. It reminds me of Mompou's Musica callada.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Karl Henning on May 18, 2017, 09:45:48 AM
Bartók, A Gyermekeknek, of course.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 09:48:51 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 18, 2017, 09:45:48 AM
Bartók, A Gyermekeknek, of course.

That should indeed be a beauty. Must check my Kocsis set soon.  8)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Spineur on May 18, 2017, 09:58:22 AM
got this one recently.  Very nice

(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61OJbz6JmSL._SS500.jpg)
and if you havent seen suzie tempelton anime on peter and the wolf, you must remedy this subito presto


[asin]B002BSP7HA[/asin]
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 10:12:23 AM
Quote from: Spineur on May 18, 2017, 09:58:22 AM
got this one recently.  Very nice

(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61OJbz6JmSL._SS500.jpg)

Wishlisted.

Quote
and if you havent seen suzie tempelton anime on peter and the wolf, you must remedy this subito presto


[asin]B002BSP7HA[/asin]

Wow! Looks like something my 4-year son who is quite fond of anime might be interested in! Thanks a lot for that!
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Cato on May 18, 2017, 10:51:10 AM
Is there an age "window" ?

My 6th Graders have heard Mozart's Waisenhausmesse (composed when he was 11 or 12) and excerpts from his opera Apollo et Hyacinthus.

How about the Franz Von Suppe' overtures, which appeared in a good number of classic cartoons?

You could of course visit the Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Walter Lantz cartoons of the 1930's, 1940's and early 1950's for all kinds of Classical Kids stuff!

But if you just want them to hear the music, people have put together medleys on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/v/GrjxtNYhTCc


https://www.youtube.com/v/R7gNNA-GdsA

And of course...Bugs Bunny as Leopold!!!

https://archive.org/details/LongHairedHare (https://archive.org/details/LongHairedHare)




Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 10:58:50 AM
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2017, 10:51:10 AM
My 6th Graders have heard Mozart's Waisenhausmesse (composed when he was 11 or 12) and excerpts from his opera Apollo et Hyacinthus.

This is music by, not for or about, a child.  ;D

Quote
How about the Franz Von Suppe' overtures, which appeared in a good number of classic cartoons?

Were they written expressly for, or about, children?  ;D

Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Cato on May 18, 2017, 12:11:42 PM
Quote from: Florestan on May 18, 2017, 10:58:50 AM

Were they written expressly for, or about, children?  ;D


Well, as far as I know, the answer is yes for the Mozart works (the opera was for a school play, and the Mass was for the orphans and their new chapel, and apparently the music was sung at the premiere by a choir of orphans conducted by the 12-year old composer) and "sort of yes"  $:) for the latter, as a number of von Suppe overtures have found their way into children's cartoons. 0:)

Check out John Zorn's Cat o' Nine Tails, influenced by cartoon music:

https://www.youtube.com/v/rLp_1xh34X0





Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2017, 12:46:13 PM
a little darker, Dutilleux's Shadows of Time was written in memory of Anne Frank and other children lost in the Holocaust
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: North Star on May 18, 2017, 12:55:54 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2017, 12:46:13 PM
a little darker, Dutilleux's Shadows of Time was written in memory of Anne Frank and other children lost in the Holocaust
Oh, that reminds me of Hans Krása's Brundibár (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundib%C3%A1r) - children's opera performed by the children in Theresienstadt.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: DaveF on May 18, 2017, 01:40:58 PM
Britten - lots of Britten (all of Britten?)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Spineur on May 18, 2017, 01:53:16 PM
Quote from: DaveF on May 18, 2017, 01:40:58 PM
Britten - lots of Britten (all of Britten?)
The golden vanity is really a piece for children.  It is included in this CD which has Dutilleux carnet de bord also an easy choral work for children.  Thee Daniel-Lesur on this disk is an adaptation of folk songs.

(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-R7eCv+kL._AC_SX354_SY510_QL65_.jpg)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2017, 02:00:47 PM
Quote from: DaveF on May 18, 2017, 01:40:58 PM
Britten - lots of Britten (all of Britten?)


The Michael Jackson of classical music
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: 71 dB on May 18, 2017, 02:30:02 PM
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 18, 2017, 05:01:14 AM
Elgar Wand of Youth, Dream Children and Nursery Suite.

[asin] B000OMCIVI[/asin]
+1
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Cato on May 18, 2017, 04:38:00 PM
Quote from: DaveF on May 18, 2017, 01:40:58 PM
Britten - lots of Britten (all of Britten?)

NOYE'S FLUDDE !


https://www.youtube.com/v/ughJeJ4LJD0
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Mister Sharpe on May 18, 2017, 04:47:54 PM
Two recordings spring immediately to mind :

Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Ken B on May 18, 2017, 05:16:57 PM
Quote from: DaveF on May 18, 2017, 01:40:58 PM
Britten - lots of Britten (all of Britten?)

Ooooooooppoo!
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Ken B on May 18, 2017, 05:19:04 PM
I'm really seriously going to be the first to mention Orff?
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: vandermolen on May 18, 2017, 11:09:16 PM
A vote from me for Ravel's 'Mother Goose' a charming and delightful work and Elgar's 'Nursery Suite', especially 'The Wagon Passes'. Plus 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' by Dukas.

The Wagon Passes:
https://youtu.be/97zWoAuNnOc
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: ritter on May 18, 2017, 11:18:02 PM
More stuff from France:

Florent Schmitt's delightful Une semaine du petit elfe Ferme-l'Oeil, Op.58, for piano four hands...
https://www.youtube.com/v/oC1NhcwGo3I

...and expanded into a ballet, Le petit elfe Ferme-l'Oeil, op. 73:
https://www.youtube.com/v/8KdHrjpPSTs

And, of course, from Romania, George Enescu's Impressions d'enfance, op. 28:
https://www.youtube.com/v/IfkDtg44soQ

Regards,
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: ComposerOfAvantGarde on May 18, 2017, 11:40:41 PM
There's always Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: ritter on May 18, 2017, 11:44:22 PM
And from South America:

Heitor Villa-Lobos's A prole do bebê...

https://www.youtube.com/v/9hBKRv6Usdk

...and Alberto Ginastera's Piezas infantiles:

https://www.youtube.com/v/I2jMLiKETeo
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Karl Henning on May 19, 2017, 02:39:11 AM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 18, 2017, 02:00:47 PM

The Michael Jackson of classical music
Pure coincidence that he named a pet hedgehog "Muscles."

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Cato on May 19, 2017, 06:24:17 AM
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on May 19, 2017, 12:24:54 AM
Hey Cato haven't seen you in ages!  :D

I'm very reluctant on that one, as it's more of an ode to a bunch of his influences at the time (including Stalling, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Ives, Xenakis and some sincere polka and country pastiches added too). I agree though that it is quite a "breezy" piece,  I love it (as you'd know)


But he DOES have an album called (that's right): Music For Children

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Music_for_Children.jpg)

And I don't quite know exactly what it has to do with children but he did compose a piece in 1996 of the same name (featured on that CD) for violin, piano and percussion.  ;)

Cheers man, good to see you around  8)

It is the end of the school year, so all kinds of annoying duties are swirling around me. ???

Check your messages later!  8)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Monsieur Croche on May 19, 2017, 04:58:51 PM
Modest Mussorgsky ~ The Nursery, song cycle

Igor Stravinsky ~ Trois pièces faciles & Cinq pièces faciles, piano four-hands / Pour les cing doigts piano solo.
[Technically, Stravinsky's intended the chorus for the Symphony of Psalms to be all male, i.e. boy trebles.]

Béla Bartók ~ Mikrokosmos, piano

Alexander Tcherepnin ~ Bagatelles, Op.5, piano

Francis Poulenc ~ L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant, for narrator and piano (s'wonderful:-)

Robert Muczynski ~ Six Preludes, Op. 6., piano

Octavio Pinto ~ Scenas infantis, piano

Aram Katchaturian ~ The Adventures of Ivan, piano

Englebert Humperdinck ~ Hansel und Gretel

Aaron Copland ~ Down a country Lane, piano / The Second Hurricane, opera for school children.

Benjamin Britten ~ Curlew River about a (lost) child.

Gian-Carlo Menotti ~ Amahl and the Night Visitors

Someone has mentioned Orff; apart from his scads of utility music for children,
his cantata, Der Mond

Toru Takemitsu ~ Piano pieces for children

Michael Colgrass ~ As Quiet As, orchestra
"4th graders was asked by their teacher to complete the phrase, "As Quiet as...". The composer took seven of their answers: A Leaf Turning Colors; An Uninhabited Creek; An Ant Walking; Children sleeping; Time Passing; A Soft Rainfall; and The First Star Coming Out, basing the work on his imagined sounds for each simile/"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtKKoViSP_I

Sofia Gubaidulina ~ Musical Toys, piano

György Kurtág ~ Játékok (Games) several volumes,. piano four-hands and/or solo (includes improvisation, playing with the teacher, other students.)  Wonderful pedagogic volumes of music for kids, listenable for anyone.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Jo498 on May 20, 2017, 12:45:27 AM
Menotti: Help! Help! The Globolinks!

Dvorak wrote his violin sonatina for his children (around 10-12 at the time).

Schumann has a whole bunch besides Kinderszenen: Album für die Jugend, 3 Sonatas "für die Jugend" op.118  and more.

Brahms has a volume "Volkskinderlieder" (arrangements/settings of popular/traditional children songs, I am not sure how many if any melodies are by Brahms) WoO 31 (a few of which are somewhat familiar to me from my own childhood)
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: prémont on May 20, 2017, 01:42:26 AM
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on May 19, 2017, 04:58:51 PM

Béla Bartók ~ Mikrokosmos, piano


Why not Bartok: For children?
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 20, 2017, 08:03:02 AM
Quote from: Cato on May 18, 2017, 12:11:42 PM
Well, as far as I know, the answer is yes for the Mozart works (the opera was for a school play, and the Mass was for the orphans and their new chapel, and apparently the music was sung at the premiere by a choir of orphans conducted by the 12-year old composer)

Fair enough.
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Florestan on May 20, 2017, 08:04:42 AM
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on May 19, 2017, 04:58:51 PM
Modest Mussorgsky ~ The Nursery, song cycle

Igor Stravinsky ~ Trois pièces faciles & Cinq pièces faciles, piano four-hands / Pour les cing doigts piano solo.
[Technically, Stravinsky's intended the chorus for the Symphony of Psalms to be all male, i.e. boy trebles.]

Béla Bartók ~ Mikrokosmos, piano

Alexander Tcherepnin ~ Bagatelles, Op.5, piano

Francis Poulenc ~ L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant, for narrator and piano (s'wonderful:-)

Robert Muczynski ~ Six Preludes, Op. 6., piano

Octavio Pinto ~ Scenas infantis, piano

Aram Katchaturian ~ The Adventures of Ivan, piano

Englebert Humperdinck ~ Hansel und Gretel

Aaron Copland ~ Down a country Lane, piano / The Second Hurricane, opera for school children.

Benjamin Britten ~ Curlew River about a (lost) child.

Gian-Carlo Menotti ~ Amahl and the Night Visitors

Someone has mentioned Orff; apart from his scads of utility music for children,
his cantata, Der Mond

Toru Takemitsu ~ Piano pieces for children

Michael Colgrass ~ As Quiet As, orchestra
"4th graders was asked by their teacher to complete the phrase, "As Quiet as...". The composer took seven of their answers: A Leaf Turning Colors; An Uninhabited Creek; An Ant Walking; Children sleeping; Time Passing; A Soft Rainfall; and The First Star Coming Out, basing the work on his imagined sounds for each simile/"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtKKoViSP_I

Sofia Gubaidulina~ Musical Toys, piano
yörgy Kurtág ~ Játékok (Games) several volumes,. piano four-hands and/or solo (includes improvisation, playing with the teacher, other students.)  Wonderful pedagogic volumes of music for kids, listenable for anyone.

Quote from: Jo498 on May 20, 2017, 12:45:27 AM
Menotti: Help! Help! The Globolinks!

Dvorak wrote his violin sonatina for his children (around 10-12 at the time).

Schumann has a whole bunch besides Kinderszenen: Album für die Jugend, 3 Sonatas "für die Jugend" op.118  and more.

Brahms has a volume "Volkskinderlieder" (arrangements/settings of popular/traditional children songs, I am not sure how many if any melodies are by Brahms) WoO 31 (a few of which are somewhat familiar to me from my own childhood)

Good ones, gents! Thank you!
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Ken B on May 20, 2017, 12:14:27 PM
Off topic but it fits...
I was at the library today. A young girl was there with her mother, she was 8 or 10. She is learning the cello. There was a binder full of CDs, not sure how many but a goodly number, all classical. They were looking through it, and the girl wanted it, so she bought it ($10, a SDCB) with her own money. Quite marvelous.

Music for one child at least!
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: Sergeant Rock on May 20, 2017, 01:25:00 PM
Strauss Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), Op. 70. A ballet in two acts. The story is about a group of children celebrating their confirmation in a Konditorei or Viennese pastry shop, where the confections come to life, with marzipan marches and cocoa dances. Having overindulged, one boy falls ill and hallucinates, leading to the party of Princess Pralinée, a trio of amorous liquors, and a riot of cakes pacified by beer.

Sarge
Title: Re: Music For or About Children and Childhood
Post by: NikF on May 20, 2017, 02:27:33 PM
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 20, 2017, 01:25:00 PM
Strauss Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), Op. 70. A ballet in two acts. The story is about a group of children celebrating their confirmation in a Konditorei or Viennese pastry shop, where the confections come to life, with marzipan marches and cocoa dances. Having overindulged, one boy falls ill and hallucinates, leading to the party of Princess Pralinée, a trio of amorous liquors, and a riot of cakes pacified by beer.

Sarge

8)


Bayer:  Die Puppenfee/The Fairy Doll.

"...a wonderful fairytale, pure Hoffmann" - Alexandre Benois.

Some guy takes his children to a toy shop to buy them a doll. The owner of the shop shows them his stock of mechanical dolls, like a Chinese doll, a Japanese doll, a baby doll, a Spanish doll, a Hungarian(?) a harlequin and also the Fairy Doll, the most special (;))
The guy buys the Fairy Doll for his children. For some reason she stays in the shop overnight. When everyone goes to sleep it's the usual Hoffmann stuff and the Fairy Doll comes to life and brings the others to life along with a chess board and toymaking tools and kitchen appliances and they all dance.

The one time I've seen it (think it was a youth ballet production) it was certainly aimed at children and they made up most of the audience.
The pas de trois is especially charming and humourous, but also appealing to adults because they can see how the Fairy Doll is frankly, kind of a teaser.

Here's Lara 'Legs' Lezhnina dancing it at the Mariinsky with two dudes I can't remember the name of.

https://www.youtube.com/v/3lduZ7Zsv8c

Low-res but worth ten minutes of your time. Really, give it a try.

e: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3lduZ7Zsv8c