听Listen Again
House husband Tom Alban and his opera singer wife, Ali, are delighted their two-year-old twins are starting to sing too...
 Tom Alban with twins Tonya and Katya |
Tonya has started to sing. I know that in the great scheme of things this doesn't amount to much. I'm sure many children break into song at around two-and-a-half-years of age. But the difference is Tonya's mum is an Opera singer: In this household Singing matters. And the good news is Tonya's singing is tuneful and rhythmical.
The reason I share this otherwise very personal moment is not through any desire to whisk my daughter into superstardom - or even to make a comparison with her sister. Katya has also started to sing. As with teeth, temper tantrums and much else - there was a three week gap between the two, and she doesn't share her sister's need for an audience. No, what interests me is the source material for their musicianship...the formative influences.
A direct influence on Katya and Tonya has been their weekly kinder gruppe. There's no time here to rehearse for you the full splendour of songs like August Fridolin the Schwarzer Penguin or the more familiar Die Rahder von Bus...The wheels of the bus. These are all sung at the start of each week's session with darling Dieters and Doratheas seated in their mother's lap, or in my case on their father's knees. Katya and Tonya don't yet sing along, although they will come out with the odd line at bath time. Their favourite is the Froche Lied - the Frog song, which requires sticking your tongue out and putting it back in again as you go "Mm Mm - Macht der Klein Froche am Teiche; Mm - mm Macht der kleine Froche". Hey, Schubert and Brahms started somewhere.
There's plenty of beautifully crafted music going on in the background of the videos that they watch too. Tom and Jerry, Dumbo and their Russian equivalents. And of course Daddy sings to them, accompanying himself on the guitar. It's our night time ritual.
I reckon on about three or four songs a night although I had a request for a fifth last week. "Daddy sing Danny Boy". I cannot begin to tell you how flattering that was. I know, I know, they're just trying to string out bedtime, but I can dream.
The big treat comes when Mummy's home. If asked, Katya and Tonya will tell you exactly where Mummy is and what she does for a living. They've no idea what all that entails, and thankfully Mummy doesn't feel moved to share large chunks of Pelleas et Melisande with them when she gets home.
Mummy doesn't always have it easy. If Tonya's doggy Tobik has somehow found his way into Katya's cot then Beethoven's 9th wouldn't distract her attention from this dreadful state of affairs.
Mummy also gives them genuine lullabies - lullabies which have soothed Ukrainian children to sleep through German occupation, Stalinist famine and grinding Tsarist poverty.
Neither Tonya nor Katya can parrot these lullabies back as yet. But I like to think that melodies like this which carry what the Germans call Heimat (the spirit of home), are being laid down like a luxurious wine. Laid down somewhere beyond immediate consciousness - somewhere that needs nurturing if music is to make as much sense of life as it does for their Mum and Dad.
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