My childhood memories are populated with a dense musical landscape. I recall twirling around the living room floor to the strains of Boy George, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov “Flight of the Bumblebee”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is my memories of dancing to classical music that evoke a feeling of true joy, trumping by far the music of the days pop icons. Truly no childhood – no matter how pop saturated – is complete without some fleeting exposure to classical music.
The instigator, lyricist and lead vocalist of Beethoven’s Wig, Richard Perlmutter has worked to provide a fun, informative introduction to classical music for children by pairing short orchestral pieces with zany lyrics. In Dance Along Symphonies we find lyrics expressing the giddy delight of childhood paired with well-known instrumental pieces originally written to accompany dancing in this fourth installment. This combination of the irreverent words with the exquisite accompaniment is mirrored in the somewhat awkward, every day voice of Perlmutter joined with his accomplished operatic cohorts.
Such contrasts result in a comedic, toe-tapping album that entertains every member of the family and sets children to dancing immediately. Needing only my brief disclosure, “These songs are for dancing to,” my little girls were off, whirling across the rug. As preschoolers they are still too young to appreciate the entertaining play on the titles of the pieces that Perlmutter has written into the carefully chosen lyrics - so carefully paired with the pace and mood of the song – but they certainly elicited chuckles from me.
The most obvious example is found in the words accompanying the “Minuet in G from Notebook of Anna Magdalena” or “Minuet Duet” as Beethoven’s Wig has dubbed it.
“This is a minuet in G
It makes a good duet so we
Sing in the key of G
That’s the key where we sing in harmony”
Many other references to the title, dance style, or composer name are far more subtle and hidden within the song.
Dance Along Symphonies consists of 11 songs spanning a wide variety of dance styles: ballet, polka, two-step, waltz, march and others along with a bonus track of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” accompanied by the song “Beep Beep Beep”; a stirring reminiscence of being stopped at a traffic light one beautiful moonlit night. Other memorable pairings include “I Want My Diploma” set to the score of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance, March No. 1” and the surprising “Midnight Snack” sung alongside “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen. The variety of dance styles result in a change in pace and mood throughout the CD. When paired with short running lengths, this diversity captures the attention of the most distractible children.
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