No, it’s not Peter Wolf, once married to actress Faye Dunaway, of Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde fame. Peter Wolf was the frontman for the J. Geils Band. Perhaps you’re familiar with their tune, Centerfold, from the album Freeze-Frame. Rolling Stone called him “the Boston Blues Madman.”
Who Were Peter and the Wolf?
Sergio Prokofiev composed more than 100 symphonies, operas, and ballets.
In 1936 he wrote what many consider to be the finest of his 14 vocal orchestral pieces. Prokofiev wrote his symphonic fairy tale around an old Russian folk tale. It tells a story of a boy’s encounter with a wolf in the forest.
Each character is represented by an orchestral instrument and follows a theme.
The bird is the flute; the duck is an oboe; the cat is a clarinet; grandfather is a bassoon, and the wolf is three horns. Peter is represented by a string quartet, and the sounds of the kettledrums come from hunters in the forest, shooting at things.
Once you know the tale, try listening to the instrumental-only version and see how well you can follow the story by listening to just the music.
Peter and the Wolf is the first classical music I can remember hearing.
Many years later, I found out that it is a great way to teach a child (or yourself) to enjoy a different kind of music than the stuff they’re bombarded with now. Many online sites have guides to help parents and teachers introduce children to orchestral music through Peter and the Wolf.
The action is expressed through the way the instruments are played.
The music’s tempo, pitch, and dynamics create mood. CarnegieHall.org says “Expressive qualities are the different elements that composers and musicians use to infuse music with an overarching mood and emotional content.”
The three fundamental expressive qualities are tempo, dynamics, and articulation.
Tempo is how fast or slow the music is played. Dynamics is how loud or soft you play it. Articulation is how the notes should be played. Should they be short and detached? Musicians know this as staccato. Legato means connected and smooth. Accented is how much more attack and punch the notes should have.
Along with the music, Peter and Wolf has a narrator
The reader introduces the characters and then steps in occasionally with a brief description of what’s going on.
Over the years a dozen different people have narrated the tale.
I’ve chosen the Lorne Greene version because it has a terrific introduction. If you can’t stick around for the entire story, make sure you at least listen to the first two minutes as the strong, familiar voice of Ben Cartwright introduces the animals and instruments to his sons Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe.
Here are a few of the more interesting narrators.
Basil Rathbone is best known as Sherlock Holmes, the deductive-reasoning detective in The Hound of the Baskervilles and 13 other films.
Sterling Holloway is known for his amusing appearance and high-pitched, raspy voice-overs for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, and Bambi.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a United Nations diplomat, humanitarian, and the activist wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Milton Cross was the voice of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 44 years. This is where I first heard Peter and the Wolf.
Alec Guinness. Most people know him as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Some know him as Smiley, a British intelligence officer. My favorite Guinness films are Ladykillers, and Bridge Over the River Kwai, for which he won an Academy Award.
Peter Ustinov is best known for his film work as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.
Boris Karloff was the original Frankenstein’s monster. Young folks first heard him in the animated television special Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, for which Karloff won a Grammy for Best Recording For Children. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, despite being a bowlegged stutterer and lisper.
As Captain Kangaroo, Bob Keeshan was an ancestor of Mister Rogers, a grandfather for preschoolers. Before that, he was Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show* with the host, Buffalo Bob Smith.**
Canadian Lorne Green, head of the Ponderosa’s Cartwright family.
Sean Connery. Known for being Indiana Jones’ father, Professor Henry Jones, Sr, Connery was the first and thus the only real James Bond in film. All the rest are impostors.
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Howdy Doody was an 11-string red-headed marionette in cowboy garb. Howdy’s face had 48 freckles, one for each state in the union (period-correct). I can’t find my glasses but I still know the lyrics and tune.
**Buffalo Bob Smith was from Buffalo, New York, naturally.
