A cultural landslide....

Recently, a friend of mine was kind enough to give me an old Magnavox radio/phonograph set. It's a beauty with a full sized cabinet, record changer and even a shortwave band. I have not yet tested if it works, but it looks great.

He also threw in a set of records with the modest title you see here, circa 1958. It's a really neat idea, but some people would probably rip it as middlebrow. But that is the point. This family is learning together listening to music that is widely regarded as beautiful because of its harmony and complexity.

The Basic Library of the World's Greatest Music was a subscription series. Each week subscribers would receive classical music records in the mail with a listening guide. It's a pretty good collection and I like it. It focuses on the swath of mainstream classical music from late baroque to late romantic. No Monteverdi. No Schoenberg. Once I get a turntable hooked back up I will let you know about the quality of the recordings.

This series is set apart by the fact that it includes entire symphony movements not just the part that inspired popular music. Later classical music collections sold on TV only had the popular parts. All you would hear are excerpts of the recognizable tunes lifted for pop songs. For example a particular classical music collection sold on TV in the 1970s featured the first movement of Rachmaniov's second piano concerto "which you all recognize as Full Moon and Empty Arms." But that was all. Owners of that collection missed out on some very good music.

Again, I like the overall idea of a steady stream of decent music delivered weekly. But the best thing here is the family gathered around the record player. OK so the sound quality is poor and even Don Draper probably didn't wear a suit to listen to music in his living room, but this is a family event. Even if the kids wander off after a few minutes, at least they saw the records, and listened to the beginning of the music. Here is an activity more engaging than watching Uncle Milty on TV and you got to keep the records to listen to later. And if some of the music might be a little hard to understand you can always refer back to the booklets. Most importantly, what do kids want the most from their parents? Their attention!

(Bonus points to those who can identify the headline reference and say so in the comments.)