Maestro Classics: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

We have loved listening to the stories behind the music as shared by Maestro Classics for years, and we were especially excited to get to review their brand new release! The Nutcracker CD and study guide is now available on their website. Tchaikovsky's ballet is performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the story is narrarated by America's premiere storyteller Jim Weiss. 

My family took this CD with them to visit my inlaws and enjoyed listening on the way there. My daughter shared about this CD:

"This story differed from others produced by Maestro Classics, as all that was included on the cd was the story with the music. The narration was accompanied by a performance of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was the original version of the story, so it wasn't narrated like a fairytale. There wasn't a section at the end where it talked about the instruments, although it did talk a little bit about the conductor. The CD case had a little bit of information about the story. It included a little bit about the harp being part of the orchestra, which Emily was interested in. (She has taught herself to play the harp.) Other instruments weren't discussed. It was neat to hear the actual story, and how the story was supposed to be,  rather than one of the various other versions we have watched or listened to. Joseph says he liked the part where the nutcraker cracked his arm. It was narrated by one person, Jim Weiss, who was all of the voices. The music was playing by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The music sounded really nice. Joseph said it was a good story. It was nothing like the movie. The music that went along with the story was performed by an entire orchestra. The music was very nice. It enhanced the story as it was played while the story was being narrated. There were certain parts in the story where the narration stopped so that you just heard the music for a minute. Everyone liked it. 

The music went along perfectly with the story. It got intense during the section with the fight with the mouse king, and pretty when the sugar plum fairy was introduced. It did have the activity pamplet in the CD case, which had a few pages of games to go along with it. There was a small section about the background I understand of the story. This was an abridged version of the story, but it still lasted about an hour. It was a good audio book for kids to be able to get a good example of the music."

Maestro Classics also shared a free pdf download filled with links to easily turn this music into a unit study. Multiple ideas and links are shared to combine The Nutcracker with ballet, history, geography, science, language arts, art, music, and math.

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Click the graphic below to read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of The Nutcracker and Peter and the Wolf.