A DELICIOUS TASTE OF MOZZARELLA!

A mouse listens as a composer brings his family a musical gift in this entry in the Little Stories of Great Composers series.

Minim, a music-loving mouse, secretly lives with Sasha and Bobik, niece and nephew, respectively, of the celebrated Russian composer Pyotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky. Uncle Petya’s arrival means fun and presents, but the children are disappointed when Uncle Petya unveils a musical score rather than a toy. Then he sits down at the piano, and both children and Minim close their eyes to imagine Uncle Petya’s travels. As the children’s piano skills improve they come to appreciate the way their uncle’s gift has given them “much more pleasure than some ordinary toy.” Educational and with an explicit moral, this slight piece lacks conflict save for a short, thrilling moment when Minim is chased by the children’s mother. Rich textures and brocadelike patterns evoke a sumptuous house and grand clothes. All human characters present White. Colm Feore’s crisp narration adds warmth to the audio version, which includes a few snippets of Tchaikovsky’s music and is available on an accompanying CD and as a downloadable MP3 file. Backmatter consists of information about Tchaikovsky and his Album for the Young, which was dedicated to his nephew; it fails to mention that a few years later Tchaikovsky would write love letters to Bobik. It is also unclear if Sasha is a fictional character or perhaps a mashup of the composer’s sister and niece.

Moralistic and factually muddled; readers might prefer to simply listen to Album for the Young.