From Composer Highlights, an educational coloring book series, by
Leonice Thompson Kidd. The pictures and text on each page of this interesting
series tell the stories of twelve famous composers and their families-their
lifestyles, travels, difficulties, accomplishments, compositions, and maps of
significant places in their lives, as well as customs, clothing fashions,
cities, buildings, instruments of their times. At the beginning of each book
there is a page "Understanding These Words". By choosing the colors to
complete the pictures, students invest some imagination and effort into the
completed stories, aided by a few lines of narrative on each page.
Age 6 up. Good for studio, home school, classroom, camps, gifts or awards.
(For class projects, different pages can be assigned to various students and
then reassembled to complete a study of a selected composer.) Coloring Books are
8 ½ X 11 inches, 32 pages.
LK008 George Frideric Handel. Drawn by Kevin R. Murphy.
Some of the illustrations include George's father, the interior of the
Liebfrauenkirche in Halle, a clavichord, St. Peter's in Rome, a harpsichord,
portraits of Queen Anne and George I, the London location for the performance of
the Water Music, and a portrait of the composer himself.
Text on P. 29 accompanies a drawing of the scene and fireworks. April 27,
1749. The Music for the Royal Fireworks was performed in Green Park complete
with fireworks. A wooden building had been erected with columns, statues of
Greek gods, and a bas-relief of the King. The basis for the fireworks was a
'machine' 410 feet long and 114 feet high. For the music the King requested as
many martial instruments as possible and hoped there would be 'no fidles'. The
rockets went off with flare, but the illumination machinery performed slowly.
Suddenly the right pavilion caught fire, burst into flames, and burned to the
ground.
