Can You Hear It? » (Book & CD)

In association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Now the best-selling series Can You Find It? in a great new format!

Similar to Abrams best-selling series, Can You Find It?, in this book, young readers are introduced to great music through great works of art. From "The Flight of the Bumblee" to "The Four Seasons" to "Night on Bald Mountain," beloved music is illustrated by great works of art, and the text and accompanying CD urge young readers to listen for certain instruments. Can you hear the car horns honking, played by clarinets? Can you hear the horses' hooves, played by castanets? When each CD track is played, young readers will stop, look, and listen as never before.

Classical music is filled with unforgettable images. In this book, great examples of pictorial music are matched to masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for an introduction to both music and art appreciation for young listeners. Included is a CD featuring 12 short works and an introduction to the orchestra and the instruments.

Mary ElamCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

Gr 2 6
This visual and aural feast invites parents, educators, and young listeners to "listen and look" at 13 examples of pictorial music and visual masterpieces. The introduction prepares readers with an explanation of the connections between composers' notes and art images. A woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, the pointillism of Seurat, and landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael and Thomas Cole are among those included in the presentation. The paired examples invite listeners to identify solo instruments or orchestral themes that characterize an image found in the visual art, e.g., "Can you hear the gun battles?" in a pairing of a Remington painting with Aaron Copeland's Billy the Kid: Gun Battle . Although seven of the musical pieces are by either Vivaldi or Saint-Saëns, the recordings of works by Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Copland reflect a broad range of artists and orchestral styles from America and Europe. This treasure completes a larger unit of study or simply gives pleasure with a presentation of inspired works in dual media for children's appreciation.