Can You Hear It?

Thirteen pictures set the scene for the music. A Japanese print of a hovering bee illuminates the trilling flutes in The Flight of the Bumblebee. A Jazz age painting of a traffic jam at the Arc de Triomphe captures the rousing opening of An American in Paris. And a gilded Mughal watercolor of an elaborately costumed elephant gives life to a magisterial creature from The Carnival of Animals. Accompanying each image are a CD track number and guided questions, which prime readers to listen for specific sounds. When the track is played, readers will look and listen as never before.
The CD includes American and European orchestras playing thirteen short works (or excerpts of longer ones), each about 2-3 minutes in length. Also included in the book is an introduction to musical instruments, illustrated with beautiful and historically significant examples from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as notes on the artists, composers, and works.