Adventures in a Perambulator

• Carpenter composed Adventures in a Perambulator in 1914, and he revised the work in 1941.
• This piece illustrates the sights and moods experienced by a baby out for a walk in a stroller.
• Each movement of this suite has program notes written from the point of view of the baby (likely the composer’s young daughter Ginny.) ¹

“Every morning — after my second breakfast — if the wind and the sun are favorable, I go out. I should like to go alone, but my will is overborne. My Nurse is appointed to take me. She is older than I, and very powerful. While I wait for her, resigned, I hear the cheerful steps, always the same. I am wrapped in a vacuum of wool, where there are no drafts. A door opens and shuts. I am placed in my perambulator, a strap is buckled over my stomach, my Nurse stands firmly behind me, and we are off!”

Notes to Adventures in a Perambulator, mvt. 1, “To the Carriage” ²

1. “Blue” Gene Tyranny, “Adventures in a Perambulator (1914-1941),” in Christ Woodstra, Gerald Brennan and allen Schrott, ed., All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005), 251.
2. Richard A. Rodda, “Scheherazade,” Grant Park Music Festival (2012), accessed August 15, 2019, https://www.grantparkmusicfestival.com/uploads/pdf/August_1_Scheherazade.pdf.