I just remembered...

When I was a kid, my parents somehow got ahold of certain audio tapes made by a Canadian company Classical Kids.

They were basically stories about classical composers as told through imagined interactions with children. In one, a girl is reluctantly practicing the piano (a gigue by Bach), and just as she is frustrated and wants to go outside to play, who stops by but (the spirit of) dear old JS himself. In another, we hear the narration of a little boy whose mother is the landlord for Mr. Beeethoven who moves in upstairs. You get the idea.

We did a lot of driving around on weekends as I was growing up, and it was always engaging to hear these stories. My sister and I are really big on nostalgic repetition -- I guess we kept that childhood habit of wanting a favorite bedtime story read to us nightly.

For some reason, I was just thinking about them -- (well, I know the reason -- I was reading Rosand's Opera in Seventeenth Century Venice, which reminded me of one of the favorite tapes: Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery).


Also, so far as I know, this is the earliest instance in which I've been convinced that I can see the (handsome) "face" of a voice. The voice-acting on this is pretty rad. Why does Canada always get nice things?

(the CBC is rad as hell)