Here is the story of Ludwig van Beethoven, greatest master of all, told with feeling and delicate skill for boys and girls. Perhaps he, too, will become a musician like all the Beethovens, thought his father. From then on, the four-year-old Ludwig was kept at the piano hour after hour until the long exercises were mastered. This is his story-an inspiring story of his achievements against all odds of his growing deafness. "Long live Beehoven " shouted the audience. But the master could not hear them, and as a singer turned him gently to face the audience, the noble head bowed low as he saw...

Joseph Haydn, The Merry Little Peasant, is a simple, inspiring children s biography of the great musician Franz Joseph Haydn which will win its way into the hearts of all music-loving children. As a child, Franz Joseph Haydn was called "Little Sepperl." He used to sit on a stool near his father with two smooth pieces of wood held firmly in his hands, playing his own make-believe violin. His parents watched as the boy drew one piece of wood slowly across the other. He played very seriously and kept perfect time One day he went to live with his cousin in a town near Vienna. He learned to read...

All family members will enjoy this classic work for children. It is amazing how much history, biographical material, and music is included in this book Sebastian Bach, The Boy from Thuringia is the first complete work on the life of Bach ever written for children. Every important incident is mentioned and every detail of the story is true. It is filled with vivid descriptions of Bach s childhood: how he sat up many nights and copied music by the light of the moon, and how he walked two hundred miles to a choir school at Luneburg. Then his adult life: how he helped his wife Magdalena put the...

"Here, at last, is the new edition of Mozart, The Wonder Boy, that you have wanted for such a long time. The first book of Mozart, The Wonder Boy, had some delightful music, but you wanted still more, and here it is - thirty-five full pages of Mozart music that you will find at the end of the story. And now what a joyous time you will have as you give yourself a beautiful concert, playing the lovely waltzes, minuets, and sonatas, all of them written by Mozart, the Wonder Boy." Opal Wheeler & Sybil Deucher (from the original 1941 edition)

This title is part of the Great Musicians Series...

With clarity, and admirable simplicity keyed to the understanding of children, Opal Wheeler has traced the many-sided career of George Frederic Handel, whose restless nature vied always with his tremendous ability as a composer and director. Handel s strange boyhood, clouded by the fact that his father did not want him to become a musician, and the later years when, thanks to the patronage of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, his music was played before the greatest music lovers of Europe makes for fascinating reading. The selections of Handel s music included are those best understood and most...

This book is about the brilliant young Schubert, his merry friends, and their pranks and escapades, in most of which Franz is the hero. One of the most interesting stories in the book is the new light that is shed on the history of the Unfinished Symphony. It remained unfinished, not because of poverty, illness and discouragement, or because of the composer's early death. The real reason, according to the authors, was that Schubert's merry friends were starting for a picnic just when he was in the middle of it, and he went along. Before he left he stuffed the partly written score in his desk...