Classical Kids audio stories: a guide to the series

Classical Kids is a series of audio stories that puts a composer’s music inside a tale with child characters. Each story runs a little under an hour. There are nine titles. They suit car rides, quiet time, and homeschool composer study.

Where the series came from

Susan Hammond, a music teacher in Canada, made a demo tape called Mr. Bach Comes to Call in 1989. She had a hunch that children would take to classical music if it came with a story. By 1995 she had produced six recordings, a film of Beethoven Lives Upstairs that won an Emmy Award, and live shows with orchestras.

The nine titles

Title	Composer	The story in one line
Mr. Bach Comes to Call	Bach	Bach appears to a girl who does not want to practice and tells her about his life.
Beethoven Lives Upstairs	Beethoven	A boy’s family rents a room to a strange, loud lodger.
Mozart’s Magic Fantasy	Mozart	A journey through the story of The Magic Flute.
Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery	Vivaldi	A mystery at Carnival time in Venice, where Vivaldi teaches music at an orphanage.
Tchaikovsky Discovers America	Tchaikovsky	The composer’s trip to America.
Hallelujah Handel	Handel	A boy is helped by Handel and by Katarine, a character from the Vivaldi story.
Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage	Mozart	A second Mozart adventure.
Song of the Unicorn	Early music	A tale told by the actor Jeremy Irons.
Daydreams and Lullabies	Many composers	Quiet music and poems for rest time.

Which one first?

• Ages 4 to 6: Daydreams and Lullabies at bedtime. Then Mr. Bach Comes to Call, which is the gentlest story.
• Ages 6 to 9: Beethoven Lives Upstairs. It is the best known, and a child tells it in letters.
• Ages 8 and up: Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery, for a child who likes a puzzle.

Hammond has said that the youngest children pick up on the sound effects and the children’s voices, and that older children and adults hear more in the same story.

What a child learns

• The sound of one composer. A child hears one composer’s music for a whole story.
• A few facts that stick. Bach spent time in jail. Beethoven went deaf. Vivaldi taught orphans.
• Famous pieces by ear. The Bach story uses the “Air on the G String,” the Prelude in C major, and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” among others.

The stories mix fact and invention. The child characters are made up, and the composers’ lives are true in outline.

How to use them

In the car. One story fills a drive of a little under an hour.

For composer study. Play one story at the start of a month with that composer. Then play the real pieces all month. Read composer study for homeschool.

Before a concert. Play Mozart’s Magic Fantasy before a trip to the opera. Read The Magic Flute for kids.

After the story. Ask three questions.

1. Which piece of music do you remember?
2. What did you learn about the composer?
3. Which part was made up?

Then read the matching page here: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, or Handel.

Where to find them

All nine titles are sold as audiobooks, and library audiobook apps carry them. Ask your library first. Older copies on CD and cassette turn up in libraries and used shops.

If your child likes these

• Peter and the Wolf is a story with an orchestra and a narrator. Read the guide.
• The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra names every instrument. Read the guide.
• Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts are television programs for the same age. Read how to watch them with kids.
• Picture books tell more of these stories. Read picture books about music.

Sources

Checked in November 2026.

• The Christian Science Monitor. Composers’ stories pique children’s imaginations. January 9, 1995.
• J.W. Pepper. Classical Kids teaching edition, for the list of nine titles.
• OverDrive. Classical Kids, for the audiobook editions and narrators.
• Sonlight. Classical Kids collection, for the plots of the Bach and Vivaldi stories.
• AudiobooksNow. Classical Kids, for running times.
• SwapaCD. Mr. Bach Comes to Call, for the track list.
• LoveReading. Susan Hammond, for the plot of Hallelujah Handel.