Owing an apology to Sir Mix-A-Lot for the horrible pun in the title, the
Lumiere String Quartet should be a little embarrassed as well for the tired marketing concept of this "intelligence-boosting" CD. Thankfully, Baby Got Bach is not a weird hip-hop mutation of music by
J.S. Bach, but a rather ordinary example of well-known pieces programmed for toddlers, purportedly to raise the IQ, if not a skeptical eyebrow. These string quartet arrangements of
Bach may not make infants any smarter than
Mozart's music was presumed to do in the 1990s; while that speculative notion has been overpromoted in the classical field with scant evidence to support it, there's no reason to take the claim seriously here. The musicians of the
Lumiere String Quartet -- violinists
Victoria Paterson and Kristina Musser, violist Junah Chung, and cellist Robert Burkhart, with guest flutist
Sato Moughalian on five tracks -- turn in reasonably secure and expressive performances, and the orchestral textures they simulate are quite impressive. Even so, there are occasional problems of intonation and ensemble blend, and the sound of this group is not especially refined or polished, as one might expect of a string quartet that plays gigs in New York. Still, this album shows promise, and the
Lumiere String Quartet may have a fine recording career ahead if it dispenses with corny titles, disturbing CD cover art, and dubious marketing gimmicks.