The Stories of Vivaldi & Corelli in Words and Music

I noticed in reading various reviews for this series that many people are using these when they home school their children to introduce them to classical music. I think that's great-and something probably no longer done in your basic school system, sadly.However, i'm over 50 and have been purchasing this series entirely for my own knowledge and enjoyment, and I have to say that i'm enjoying these so much that I intend on getting the entire series (which is 18 CD's and covers 20 c0mposers in total).I noticed some folks complained that the series doesn't contain complete pieces-to them I say that there are TONS of music-only CD's (even budget collections) by all 20 of the composers covered-and for most of them no other biographical CD's. So I really don't understand the complaint, unless those purchasers didn't bother to read the full description of the CD before buying.Personally I wish their were more CD's like this for jazz musicians and more modern composers. This stuff is simply great when driving-especially on a long trip.About my only (slight) complaint is that many of these CD's run at just over 60 minutes. I would rather the people creating and releasing these attempt to use the full 80-minute capacity of modern CD's and give more specific, detailed biographical information on the artists-more music, as I said before, could be found elsewhere. But at times entire (important) chunks of the composers life is overlooked for the sake of time considerations and brevity. But that's my ONLY complaint and it won't at all stop me from buying the complete set. Certainly worth it's very reasonable price..

We thoroughly enjoyed the music and the stories behind these composers. It was pleasant to hear the stories behind songs that we've heard but did not necessarily know much about their composers. We ordered the digital version. It downloaded well and plays well on the Amazon Music app on our Roku.

Will use this for Music Class

This CD is one of the Music Masters series of classical music history. I highly recommend it. Great value for the money. This will primarily be used for homeschooling.

We've loved listening to Music Masters in the car! The car is really a great place to use them: the munchkins are already obliged to sit still for a while, and their engagement in listening makes for a peaceful trip. 👍If you've already been making sure your children possess an early love of music as a personal experience (say, via starting Suzuki-method lessons at early ages) your children will be much more likely to follow and enjoy these stories: mine have enthusiastically enjoyed them, over and over, by the age of seven. BUT, I can't imagine these would be as reliably engaging if your kids were experientially ignorant of music on the whole. So, I'd say these are a lovely curriculum addition for people who intentionally "do music", but home educators who don't probably shouldn't expect these to fill a primary role in their music education curriculum.I am not bothered by the fact that the musical pieces are not played in their entirety: it would interrupt the flow of the story too much to keep you engaged. My children have actually gone to my musical library and looked for collections of the artists' compositions afterwards, listening to their full works in due course. I think the "excerpts" approach leaves them wanting more, which, imo, is fantastic.

Not what I expected. The narrator voice I didn't like at all. Too bad I was looking forward to finding a great composer series.