Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies: 2002
The group's first album Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies was released on Rounder Records in 2002. Prior to that time Perlmutter had released two solo albums, Tin Pan Alley Songs For Children, and Hot Diggity, and produced albums for the Grammy Award winning band Nickel Creek and Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson. Perlmutter had studied classical guitar, piano, and music composition, and had wanted to write lyrics to classical music. He described his thoughts when he came up with the words "Beethoven's wig is very big", to the tune of the allegro con brio of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, "The words fit perfectly with the first eight notes of the symphony. And the wig was a perfect symbol for classical music." Within a week of the release of the album, Perlmutter was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, and then appeared on NBC's Today Show. The album shot to #6 on Amazon's Hot 100 Sales Chart and held the #1 position on both the Amazon Classical and Children's Music Sales Charts for four months. Pulse magazine called Beethoven's Wig, "Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!" The LA Times said it was, "an irreverent approach to music appreciation." US News and World Report said, "Perlmutter's got goofball charm… the lyrics are truly hilarious!" Over the next year, Beethoven's Wig received 15 national awards including a Grammy Nomination for Best Musical Album for Children, and a Parent's Choice Award. It was also designated an American Library Association Notable Recording.
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Famous quotes containing the words beethoven and/or sing:
“People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven quartet.”
—Witold Lutoslawski (b. 1913)
“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)