The Musicians of Brennan Symphony of Stories

The “Town Musicians of Bremen” tells the story of four ageing domestic animals, who after a lifetime of hard work are neglected and mistreated by their former masters. Eventually, they decide to run away and become town musicians in the city of Bremen. Contrary to the story’s title the characters never arrive in Bremen, as they succeed in tricking and scaring off a band of robbers, capturing their spoils, and moving into their house.

Brian Wildsmith (see inside this book here)

Hans Wilhelm

Bernadette Watts

Gerda Muller

Thinking about the 2026 CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) slogan "Symphony of Stories" I had a chance meeting with a parent from a local school and she mentioned the younger children were about to perform The Musicians of Bremen.

There are plenty of picture book versions of this folk tale that you could explore in your library.

The tale was first published in 1819 in the second edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales and there is a statue in the actual town of Bremen. 

If you want to take a deep dive into the story here is a very academic analysis. I also found a fairly sophisticated audio version.

Lisbeth Zwerger

The four animals put their heads together and came up with a plan. The donkey placed his front hooves on the windowsill. The dog jumped on the donkey's back. The cat climbed on top of the dog. And the rooster flew up and perched on the cat's head.

At a signal, they all began to perform their music at once: the donkey brayed, the dog barked, the cat yowled, and the rooster crowed. Then they crashed through the window into the room, sending glass flying everywhere! The noise was so tremendous that the robbers leaped from their seats, certain that a ghost had burst in, and they fled into the forest in terror.

This illustration is by Hans Fischer (1944)

This is a 2019 book from Korea

This one is from 2009 - illustrated by Katrin Stangl