Traditional – Fauna and Flora of Japan (String Quartet Parts)

This delightful collection of traditional Japanese folk songs, arranged by Bill Thorp, is framed by a cradle song Sleep, Baby, Sleep and was originally marked “in butterfly fashion”, with the footnote “a young mother seems to flit from theme to theme in the attempt to lullaby her infant”. The fauna and flora she sings of in her attempt include cranes and turtles, lotus flowers, a rabbit on the moon, foxes barking in the darkness, a poor canary, red dragonflies, tummy-drumming badgers and, of course, cherry blossoms.