Composer Study: Children’s book suggestions for music and composers
Once a week we do ‘composer study’ as part of our morning basket, focussing on a specific composer’s music for a block of roughly 6-8 weeks. For each composer I try to find a book or two that we can read alongside, either a biography, or something to help us appreciate their music.
Here is a list of books we have enjoyed, arranged by composer. Some composers are easier to find resources for than others!
- Mozart
- Saint-Saens
- Tchakovsky
A word about Story Orchestra books: we have quite a number of these books, and I find them helpful for introducing children to a famous piece of music. Each page has a button which can be pressed for a (high quality, fairly long) clip from the piece of music. There is a ‘story’ running through the book, which on some level links these musical clips together. The books are beautifully illustrated, but the stories can be very tenuous. I often find myself ad libbing to improve the plot as we read! I generally use these books as an introduction, but prefer to then move on to listening to some longer excerpts.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Learning about the Orchestra
A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra
Robert Levine
A couple of years (!) into composer study, I realised that my younger children were not very clear on some of the instruments in an orchestra, or how to identify by ear which instrument was playing.
This book has two main sections. The first is a brief overview of the development of classical music through history. The second is a description of each instrument within an orchestra, with plenty of illustrations and diagrams, including where they different instruments sit within the orchestra.
The book has a linked website with lots of musical clips (typically 1-3 minutes), showcasing each instrument. There are also hints for listening to help you get the most out of each piece.
An excellent resource, and one I wish I had used before beginning composer study, to make sure that we had a solid foundation.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1 (Ladybird)
Ian Woodward
These are fantastic little books, highly recommended. This volume contains short biographies of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. There are watercolour illustrations on every page.
The Magic Flute (The Story Orchestra)
Katy Flint
A lovely introduction to the music of the Magic Flute, but as usual the plotline is rather lacking. This book follows the barebones plotline of the Magic Flute opera, though with significant omissions, some more understandable than others. Papageno features, but no Papagena. One has the sense of new characters appearing very abruptly with little explanation. On the other hand the illustrations are beautiful. I have mixed feelings on these books!
Other ideas for Mozart
We found it very helpful to watch some clips of The Magic Flute opera. My children had not previously had any exposure to opera and were fascinated by the drama of the whole thing! I would recommend pre-viewing your selections; not all of opera is necessarily child-friendly.
Camille Saint-Saens
Carnival of the Animals (The Story Orchestra)
Katy Flint
In this Story Orchestra book, two children accidentally enter a magical world of the animals. They encounter a different species (and a different musical clip from Saint-Saens!) on each page. This is mostly fine, though I found a couple of scenes rather odd. There is one page where they inexplicably released lots of birds from an aviary, without making any attempt to find out why they were in there in the first place. In this, they are assisted by a friendly fox, who has no interest in eating the birds. On the final page both children lie to their mother, which I tend to omit, I don’t think it is necessary.
As always, the illustrations and music are more inspiring than the plot.
Other resources for Saint-Saens
We also made use of this free Carnival of the Animals colouring book from the MusicMattersBlog.com, whilst we were listening to different sections of the music.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Peter Tchaikovsky
Mike Venezia
A humorous short biography of Tchaikovsky, with lots of cartoon illustrations. I was a bit concerned at first that it would be too ‘frivolous’ for my tastes, but there was plenty of helpful information in this book, and sometimes the cartoons helped it to stick in my children’s minds.
There is a page covering Tchaikovsky’s ongoing struggle with depression in a rather humorous way, which you can see in the sample below.
The Sleeping Beauty (The Story Orchestra)
Katy Flint
I personally find this to be one of the better Story Orchestra books for plotline. The story of Sleeping Beauty is perhaps easier to summarise into a length suitable for a picture book than some of the operas! As always, it is beautifully illustrated and the musical clips on each page are excellent.
Swan Lake (The Story Orchestra)
Katy Flint
The basic story of Swan Lake is here, though made more child friendly. Siegfried’s curse ‘cannot be broken’, but inexplicably on the next page, Rothbart is tripped up by some swans into the lake, and loses all his powers. Siegfried is then free to walk off into the sunset with Odette. Perhaps slightly dissatisfying for adults, but I can see why the author made the alterations. The usual beautiful illustrations and musical clips.
The Nutcracker (The Story Orchesetra)
Katy Flint
My children really enjoy this book, especially at Christmas time. For us, this is one of the better Story Orchestra books plot-wise, though it is still rather clunky at points. Beautifully illustrated, with good-length musical clips for key moments in the ballet.
Antonio Vivaldi
I, Vivaldi
Janice Shefelman
I do like this book, but I prefer to refer to the end section about ‘Fact and Fiction’ before reading aloud, so that I can comment as we read about which elements are true parts of Vivaldi’s life, and which are made up. The influence of the Catholic church on Vivaldi’s family is a major feature of the plotline.
The illustrations are beautiful, and give a great feel for life in Venice.
Four Seasons in One Day (The Story Orchestra)
Katie Cotton
As with other Story Orchestra books, this is beautifully illustrated, with lots of musical clips from different sections of the Four Seasons. My children especially enjoyed the thunderstorm section, and hearing the sounds of the thunder and lightning in the music. The plotline is weak, it makes very little sense that the little girl and her dog are carrying around an apple tree through the story, which turns out to then be a central plot element to the finale.
Other resources for Vivaldi
We enjoyed using this Listening Glyphs colouring resource from SillyOMusic as part of our study of The Four Seasons. There are four main activities, and they got my younger children listening more carefully to the music and discussing musical terms whilst they coloured.
