Build Your Baby's Brain Vol.5

Parent and child alike will derive much satisfaction from these expertly chosen selections from the musical Baroque. Even familiar pieces, such as Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D and Antonio Vivaldi's "Spring" from 'The Four Seasons,' receive here fresh-sounding performances. Raymond Leppard, conducting the English Chamber Orchestra, performs his arrangement of the Pachelbel Canon with a sense of jubilant play and invention that too often is missing in performances of this popular piece. The flute solos of Vivaldi's "Spring" have rarely been played so mellifluously, thanks to the bird-like warbling of Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Unfamiliar pieces will no doubt provide unexpected delights. Less well known than the other items on this disc, Alessandro Marcello's beautiful Oboe Concerto in D Minor, with its haunting Adagio, receives a lovely performance by John De Lancie and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy.