Peter & the Wolf

The pianos open the work in a brief introduction that seems to suggest the roar of the lions, before the Royal March begins, with it's suggestions of the exotic in it's theme. Hens and Cocks are as true to nature as the composer can make them, followed by Wild Donkeys of unexpected rapidity of motion, in contrast to the lumbering Tortoises, who offer a can-can at the slowest possible speed, putting a foot wrong here and there. The Elephant is naturally represented by the double bass in an episode that includes a direct quotation of the highly inappropriate Ballet of the Sylphs by Berlioz. The pianos alone then imitate the capricious leaps of the Kangaroos, to be followed by an evocation of the Aquarium. People with Long Ears, critics, are portrayed by piercing whistles and the braying of donkeys, while pianos and clarinet bring in the Cuckoo, followed by the rest of the aviary, with the help of the flute. The Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev wrote his Peter and the Wolf in 1936 to introduce to children the instruments of the orchestra. He had taken his two sons to see performances at the Moscow Children's Music Theatre and this had suggested to him the possibility of a composition of this kind. The boy Peter, represented by the strings, is playing in the meadow, forbidden territory. A bird, shown by the flute, sings in a tree: a duck, the oboe, swims in the pond, and a cat, the clarinet, comes onto the scene, sending the bird up to a higher branch. Peter's grandfather, the bassoon, warns the boy not to venture out, but meanwhile a wolf, the French horns, comes into the meadow, chases and swallows the duck whole, and lays siege to the cat and the bird, both now up the tree. Peter tells the bird to distract the wolf, while he catches it with a rope. Hunters then approach, their guns shown by the drums, and help to carry the wolf off to the zoo in a grand procession, with the duck still quacking inside the wolf and grandfather still complaining.