Parents try hard to bring up decent children who are respectful to others, understand ethical behaviour and the concept of 'do unto others..."  but we also wish them to be all rounders and to appreciate the arts for let's face it, a person who doesn't is like a face without a nose. Children, from an early age absorb far more than we can ever imagine and whatever experiences we give them early in life goes into their subconscious hopefully to emerge later on. Childhood that marvellous period when life was as simple as a painting book. 

Edouard Herriot the French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime  Minister described culture, in one of his speeches as "c'est qui reste lorsqu'on a toute oublie" - yes, it is what remains when everything else has been forgotten. After all we go to Rome, Paris, London, Athens and indeed Valletta not to admire the bus or drainage systems but to enjoy what the culture of these great cities has to offer. That is why it is essential for children to be brought up to appreciate beauty and the arts and it is our duty to preserve it for posterity. Most of us survive the custard pies life chucks at us from time to time thanks to the fact that we can escape into the beauty of art, literature, music and so on.

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So off we went to the Mediterranean Conference Centre to watch Disney's Fantasia with three grandchildren on a Saturday afternoon last month. We went very early because parking now dictates our very lives and we were not the only ones either who thought of the benefits of starting off early.

Although we were advised that the show is for children above the age of six years, apart from our nine-year old, we took along too, my granddaughter of four and my grandson of three and a bit and picked up a hard cushion on the way out from home for him to sit on. He was fascinated by the members of the orchestra and their instruments, by Maestro Brian Schembri and his baton, by the sounds emerging from the orchestra and of course by the colourful Disney films projected on the screen. What an experience for a three-year-old. He was mesmerized and was silent throughout.

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In 1936 Walt Disney felt that the Disney studio's star character Mickey Mouse needed a boost in popularity so he turned to the best of classical music for its revival. In fact the concept of matching animation to classical music was used as early as 1928 in Disney's cartoon series, the Silly Symphonies, but with Fantasia Walt Disney had given birth to a new concept. From the beginning of its development, Disney expressed the greater importance of music in Fantasia compared to his past work: "In our ordinary stuff, music is always under action, but on this... we're supposed to be picturing this music, not the music fitting our story," he commented.  By 1938 Disney and his creative team had decided to produce a complete feature film, with animation based on music by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Dukas and Stravinsky. It was Walt Disney's hope that the film would bring classical music to people that, including himself, had "walked out on this kind of stuff." So Disney approached none other than the great conductor Leopold Stokowski to record the music for added prestige, contracting him to select and employ a complete symphony orchestra for the recording. The original 1940 theatrical poster read "Walt Disney's Fantasia with Stokowski was more than a famous conductor - he was a superstar. He offered to do the music for nothing keen as he was to share his "interesting ideas on instrumental colouring, which would be perfect for an animation medium." Disney's excited response was that he "felt all steamed up over the idea of Stokowski working with us". And thus began the union of Stokowski and his music with the best of Disney's genius, immortalized in the 1940 Fantasia film and that iconic image of Mickey Mouse shaking hands with Stokowski, congratulating each other on the conductor's podium.

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It was on November 13, 1940 at the Broadway Theatre in New York that Mickey Mouse approached conductor Leopold Stokowski on his podium, shook his hand, and launched Disney's Fantasia into cinema history. Originally meant as a few-minute long Silly Symphony, the work eventually  grew to encompass eight musical masterpieces ranging from classical, romantic and early 20^th century repertoire.

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The concert programme at the MCC was divided into nine pieces and a wide variety of music was represented including Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, 1^st movement and Symphony No. 6: 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th movements; Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker Suite; Debussy's Claire de Lune; Stravinsky - The Firebird Suite; Amilcare Ponchiellie - Dance of the Hours; Paul Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice; Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance and Respighi - Pines of Rome; 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th movement.

Each piece, beautifully played by our Philharmonic Orchestra was accompanied visually on the huge screen so that selections from the the Nutcracker Suite underscored scenes depicting the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn to winter. A variety of dances are presented with fairies, fish, flowers, mushrooms, and leaves, including "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Chinese Dance", "Dance of the Flutes", "Arabian Dance", "Russian Dance" and "Waltz of the Flowers". So visually pleasant even for adults. All the music was  familiar music and for those who didn't know it easy to follow. It stirred our emotions, which is so essential as what kind of music is it if it doesn't?  I wonder what was going on in the minds and hopefully hearts of three of my grandchildren on that Saturday afternoon. It was most certainly a huge cultural leap for them.

If you get a chance to take your youngsters to another of these events don't miss it for it is beautiful event to share with them.