Understanding the infant musical mind

A recent article by Boston Globe music critic (and CMW friend) Jeremy Eichler:

“I’ve never felt so paralyzed standing before my CD collection as the
day I brought my newborn son home from the hospital and decided to play
him his very first music. So much was at stake. Should it be modern or
Baroque? Orchestral or opera? Would Mozart make him smarter? Would
Schoenberg instill in him revolutionary tendencies? Would Wagner make
him loathe his Jewish roots?

I settled on Bach’s “Art of Fugue” in an arrangement for string
quartet. Why not begin at the summit, and what’s more, I imagined, all
that searching counterpoint would be like honey for the infant brain.
He responded with aplomb, conveying his wise, wordless mastery of the
material by slipping into an eyes-closed, meditative state. OK, he fell
asleep.”

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