In a certain sense, as a Bach fanatic, I support anything that exposes kids to his music. So my 1-star rating is a bit awkward in that light. However, I think it well worth pointing out that the music of Bach needs no video embellishment to captivate a child’s attention. As a toddler, I was given cassette tapes of Bach’s music, and listened to them constantly. In a very real sense, from about age 1 1/2 to 6 I lived *inside* the Brandenburg concertos, preludes, and fugues, and the immersive experience has irrevocably enhanced and deepened my perception and enjoyment of music to this day. So, consider allowing your child to focus on the marvelous harmonic intricacy of Bach without the concurrent distraction of an irrelevant stream of baby photos and implicit toy ads. Who knows? Maybe (s)he will grow up appreciating such music as more than mere auditory “scenery” (to which category Baroque music has largely been relegated in American society).

The product is a great learning tool for infants. It is also fine entertainment for little ones who cannot keep their eyes off it. The only problem is that this DVD came in broken. Since it was purchased as a gift and had to be replace in a timely fashion it became a total loss since returning would have taken too long.

It’s only for people who have perfect little faces, live in perfect homes, with children who look like the children of movie stars, and think, as Julie Aigner-Clark seems to, that the sheer perfection of your existence lends itself to happy viewing by others. In watching this, first of all, my baby was bored, and so was I, but I was struck immediately by how this appears to be a showcase for a woman who, HAD to have been prom queen in high school and probably only went to college to meet her husband, and her apparently perfect, beautiful, children. All I could think of was that I was teaching my daughter how to feel inadequate compared to the popular girls (just in case she isn’t one of them) from a very early age, because their mommy put them in a video and hers didn’t.

We have both videos from Baby Genius and we love them. They are never boring for either of us. We also have the Brainy Baby tapes which are supposedly only available at therightstart.com. Those are good too, except that if you really want your child’s right brain exercised, you’ll be disappointed by the right brain tape because they miss the mark by labeling everything. Still, they are far more interesting to watch than these are. I can only see someone actually liking Baby Bach if it were the only baby video they owned, and there was nothing to which to compare it. It’s so exciting to be able to put the baby down while you do something for yourself for a little while, that you’re likely to get excited about anything that acheives that. If you want a real education for the baby, move past this.

I’m reading reviews of her other tapes, and they seem better, but frankly, I’m too turned off of this to even try.