A programme for children under five
Nursery rhymes, stories and music
We have noted before that one of the most loved of the pieces of music we have so far chosen to open these programmes for our under-fives has been the lively ' Chinese Dance ' from Tchaikovsky'3 ' Nutcracker Suite,' happily named by one little boy the ' Crack-a-Nut ' Suite. Another excerpt from the same work, the gentle ' Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy,' seems also to have pleased our small listeners, and it is this that they will hear again at the beginning of the programmes this week. ' The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts '-and the memories of little children perhaps even longer! The mother of a boy of three when asked what the introductory music was called told him the ' Nutcracker Suite.' He didn't answer, and then, quite five minutes later, he said: * A long time ago when Mummie was sick, and Martin did stay wiv Grannie, Grannie did cut nuts open wiv nutcrackers and she did give him one in each handl '
This visit to Grannie had happened some months before when Martin was only two, and the title of our music had stirred the memory of a long-forgotten experience.
Elizabeth A. Taylor