In our home, anything that makes offering music appreciation easier is a big plus. Our family has used many of the The Story of …An Introduction to The Classics CDs as part of our weekly music selections. This series makes learning about great composers super easy and enjoyable.
There is nothing more enjoyable than turning on one of these CDs as a family on a Friday afternoon. In just a few minutes, you will not only hear a short biography about the composer but then be able to listen to several of their most famous pieces of music.
What is Included with Each “The Story of…” CD?
- Included with each CD in the front of the case, is a pullout biography and information about the featured selections. These make offering a written biography easy for your high school student’s music history study.
- Although the musical selections are many times just excerpts of much longer pieces, your family will get the flavor of each composer as they listen. Our family would then find online sources or selections from our home library to listen to desired pieces in full. (See my picks for building a classical music library at home.)
- There is no need to dig around for an age appropriate biography. All the work is done for you and you just need to remember to put the CD on and listen. Even younger children will enjoy listening so be sure to include them in your music appreciation time. We often listened in the car as we drove from home to an activity.
- Each CD is approximately 60 minutes in length so it can easily be fit into an afternoon music appreciation session. We would play the narrative tracks one week and then repeat the musical selections each week for a complete month of study.
Our public library has many of these CDs available for check-out so make sure to look at your branch. They are also available at Amazon.com in CD and MP3 formats. I have also purchased them from Rainbow Resource.
List of composers available: Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Grieg, Handel, Beethoven, Haydn, Wagner, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Strauss, Foster, Sousa, Berlioz, and Verdi.
Written by Barb-Harmony Art Mom. I also blog at Harmony Art Mom and my business is found at Harmony Fine Arts. I would love for you to join us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges at Handbook of Nature Study.
Barb McCoy- Harmony Art Mom writes about homeschooling their teens on her blog Harmony Art Mom. and taking family outdoor adventures on her other blog, Handbook of Nature Study. She is the author and host for the Outdoor Hour Challenge and a series of ebooks helping families get started with simple nature study. Barb also founded Harmony Fine Arts which helps homeschoolers with their art and music appreciation.
Oh! We have those as cassettes and they are almost worn out, we played them so often. I did not know they were available as CDs now.
Thanks so much, Barb!
I’ve purchased a few of these over the years and we really like them. I never thought to check the library for them too – great tip!
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