Baby Needs Beethoven
Classical music for children has become a genre unto itself, founded on the premise of brain-power building and all too often steering parental buyers away from the full-blown versions of particular compositions toward reorchestrated renditions. It's frequently the case that a brain-tickling classical set will be played on digital keyboards, with softened tonal colors and shapes. Not so with this excellent Beethoven set. Recognized ensembles take up the music, from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to the New York Chamber Symphony to the Oxford String Quartet and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. The emphasis is on Beethoven's gentler side, from the poetic "Für Elise" for solo piano to the bucolic settings portrayed in the two selections from Beethoven's Symphony No. 6. This is neither a synapse-popping set of virtuoso performances nor an altered look at Beethoven, but it is a well-selected, well-programmed set of works that will ease a child's brain into the works at hand.--Andrew Bartlett