Peter and the Wolf
Encyclopedia
Peter and the Wolf Op. 67, is a composition written by Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

 in 1936 in the USSR. It is a children's story
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 (with both music and text by Prokofiev), spoken by a narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 accompanied by the orchestra.

History

In 1936 Sergei Prokofiev was commissioned by Natalya Sats
Natalya Sats
Natalya Sats was a Russian music teacher and director of the Moscow Musical Theater for Children, now named after her...

 and the Central Children's Theatre in Moscow to write a new musical symphony for children. The intent was to cultivate "musical tastes in children from the first years of school". Intrigued by the invitation, Prokofiev completed Peter and the Wolf in just four days. The debut on 2 May 1936 was, in the composer's words, inauspicious at best: "...[attendance] was poor and failed to attract much attention".

Instrumentation

Peter and the Wolf is scored for the following orchestra:
  • Woodwinds
    Woodwind instrument
    A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...

    : a flute
    Flute
    The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

    , an oboe
    Oboe
    The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

    , a clarinet
    Clarinet
    The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

     in A, and a bassoon
    Bassoon
    The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

  • Brass
    Brass instrument
    A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

    : 3 horn
    Horn (instrument)
    The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

    s in F, a trumpet
    Trumpet
    The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

     in B-flat, and a trombone
    Trombone
    The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

  • Percussion: timpani
    Timpani
    Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

    , a triangle
    Triangle
    A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

    , a tambourine
    Tambourine
    The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

    , cymbal
    Cymbal
    Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

    s, castanets, a snare drum
    Snare drum
    The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

    , and a bass drum
    Bass drum
    Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

  • Strings
    String orchestra
    A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...

    : first and second violin
    Violin
    The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

    s, viola
    Viola
    The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

    s, violoncello
    Cello
    The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

    s, and double bass
    Double bass
    The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

    es


Each character in the story has a particular instrument and a musical theme, or leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

:
  • Bird: flute
    Flute
    The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

  • Duck: oboe
    Oboe
    The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

  • Cat: clarinet
    Clarinet
    The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

  • Grandfather: bassoon
    Bassoon
    The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

  • Wolf: French horns
    Horn (instrument)
    The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

  • Hunters: woodwind theme, with gunshots on timpani
    Timpani
    Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

     and bass drum
    Bass drum
    Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...

  • Peter: string instrument
    String instrument
    A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

    s


The duration of the work is approximately 25 minutes.

Plot

Peter, a young boy, lives at his grandfather's home in a forest clearing. One day Peter goes out into the clearing, leaving the garden gate open, and the duck that lives in the yard takes the opportunity to go swimming in a pond nearby. The duck starts arguing with a little bird ("What kind of bird are you if you can't fly?" – "What kind of bird are you if you can't swim?"). Peter's pet cat stalks them quietly, and the bird —warned by Peter— flies to safety in a tall tree while the duck swims to safety in the middle of the pond.

Peter's grandfather scolds Peter for being outside in the meadow ("Suppose a wolf came out of the forest?"), and, when Peter defies him, saying that "Boys like me are not afraid of wolves", his grandfather takes him back into the house and locks the gate. Soon afterwards "a big, grey wolf" does indeed come out of the forest.
The cat quickly climbs into a tree, but the duck, who has excitedly jumped out of the pond, is chased, overtaken and swallowed by the wolf.

Peter fetches a rope and climbs over the garden wall into the tree. He asks the bird to fly around the wolf's head to distract it, while he lowers a noose and catches the wolf by its tail. The wolf struggles to get free, but Peter ties the rope to the tree and the noose only gets tighter.
Some hunters, who have been tracking the wolf, come out of the forest ready to shoot, but Peter gets them to help him take the wolf to a zoo in a victory parade (the piece was first performed for an audience of pioneers during May Day celebrations) that includes himself, the bird, the hunters leading the wolf, the cat and grumpy grumbling Grandfather ("What if Peter hadn't caught the wolf? What then?")
In the story's ending, the listener is told that "if you listen very carefully, you'd hear the duck quacking inside the wolf's belly, because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive."

A little trivia: In original Russian language, Prokofiev refers to "Peter, a young pioneer" which was a communist organized youth movement.

Recordings

The first American version, recorded in 1939 by RCA Victor
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

, was issued in an album of three 78 rpm discs. It was narrated by Richard Hale
Richard Hale
Richard Hale was an American character actor of film, stage and television. Hale was known for his unusual appearance which usually landed him in the roles of either Middle Eastern or Native American characters....

, a film actor best known for villainous and exotic roles, with music performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

 under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky , was a Russian-born Jewish conductor, composer and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.-Early career:...

. Hale also served as narrator for Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

's 1953 RCA Victor high fidelity
High fidelity
High fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound or images, to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment...

 recording with the Boston Pops Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....

, which also included Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

' The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...

and King Henry VIII dances by Camille Saint-Saens
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 and Edward German
Edward German
Sir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera.As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra, also...

. A 1987 Chandos Records
Chandos Records
Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...

 recording with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is Scotland's national symphony orchestra. Based in Glasgow, the 89-member professional orchestra also regularly performs in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee, and abroad. Formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra, the company has performed full-time since 1950,...

 was conducted by Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi is an Estonian-born conductor.-Early life:Järvi studied music first in Tallinn, and later in Leningrad at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Nikolai Rabinovich, among others...

, while his the composer's son Oleg Prokofiev and grandson Gabriel Prokofiev were the narrators for the 1991 Hyperion Records recording performed by the New London Orchestra
New London Orchestra
The New London Orchestra, based in London, was founded by Ronald Corp in 1988, to perform rarely heard 20th century works. The Orchestra and Corp pioneered the music of Martinů, now a familiar name with concert-goers, and have helped re-establish the popularity of ‘British Light Music' through a...

 conducted by Ronald Corp
Ronald Corp
Ronald Corp is a composer, conductor, and Church of England priest. He is founder and Artistic Director of the New London Orchestra and the New London Children's Choir. Corp is Musical Director of the London Chorus, a position he took up in 1994, and is also Musical Director of the Highgate Choral...



Many English-language recordings of this famous piece have been made, including the following examples:
  • A mono recording made by Columbia Records
    Columbia Records
    Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

    , with Arthur Godfrey
    Arthur Godfrey
    Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead...

     narrating and the music played by Andre Kostelanetz
    Andre Kostelanetz
    André Kostelanetz was a popular orchestral music conductor and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening music.-Biography:...

     and His Orchestra. This version has never been issued on CD.
  • A recording with Basil Rathbone
    Basil Rathbone
    Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

     as narrator, performed by the All-American Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

     (Avid Master Series, 1941); audio files restored by Bob Varney.
  • A recording with Boris Karloff
    Boris Karloff
    William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...

     as narrator with the Vienna State Opera
    Vienna State Opera
    The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

     Orchestra under Mario Rossi
    Mario Rossi
    Mario Rossi was an Italian conductor, noted for his solid and meticulous readings of a repertory ranging from Italian classics to Russian moderns such as Prokoffiev, to the German operatic classicist Christoph Willibald Gluck.He studied composition in Rome with Respighi and conducting with Giacomo...

     (Vanguard Records
    Vanguard Records
    Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...

    , 1957).
  • A bilingual recording featuring narration in Spanish and English by José Ferrer
    José Ferrer
    José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

    , performed by the Vienna State Opera
    Vienna State Opera
    The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

     Orchestra conducted by Eugene Aynsley Goossens
    Eugène Aynsley Goossens
    Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...

     (Kapp Records
    Kapp Records
    Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp . David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca Records and RCA Victor Records. Kapp licensed its records to London Records for release in the UK.In 1967, David Kapp sold his label to MCA Inc...

    , 1959).
  • A recording with Michael Flanders
    Michael Flanders
    Michael Henry Flanders OBE, was an English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known to the general public for his partnership with Donald Swann performing as the duo Flanders and Swann....

     as narrator with the Philharmonia Orchestra
    Philharmonia Orchestra
    The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

     under Efrem Kurtz
    Efrem Kurtz
    Efrem Kurtz was a Russian conductor. He studied at the Saint Petersburg conservatory with Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, among others. He later studied in Riga, Berlin and in Leipzig, in the last city as a pupil of Arthur Nikisch....

     (EMI Records
    EMI Records
    EMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...

    , 1959).
  • A recording by the New York Philharmonic
    New York Philharmonic
    The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

     with Leonard Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

     as conductor and narrator. The popularity of the group's televised Young People's Concerts
    Young People's Concerts
    The Young People's Concerts at the New York Philharmonic are the longest-running series of family concerts of classical music in the world.-Genesis:...

     made this an auspicious release (Columbia Records
    Columbia Records
    Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

    , 1960).
  • A recording in Volume 5 of Decca Records
    Decca Records
    Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

    ' The World of the Great Classics series, featuring Sir Ralph Richardson
    Ralph Richardson
    Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....

     as narrator with the London Symphony Orchestra
    London Symphony Orchestra
    The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

    , conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
    Malcolm Sargent
    Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

    . (This version is praised in various editions of The Stereo Record Guide
    The Stereo Record Guide
    The Stereo Record Guide is a series of nine classical discographies published by the Long Playing Record Library in Blackpool from 1960-1974.When volume 1 was published in the fall of 1960, the majority of classical records issued were monaural. The authors were totally supportive of the new...

    as the finest recording and narration of the work ever made).
  • A recording with Sir John Gielgud
    John Gielgud
    Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...

     as narrator, with Richard Stamp conducting the Orchestra of the Academy of London (Virgin Classics
    EMI Classics
    EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....

    , 1989) (Sir John's royalties for this recording were donated to The League of Friends of Charity Heritage, a facility for children handicapped physically).
  • Sir John Gielgud
    John Gielgud
    Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...

     narrated a second version in 1996, this time performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

     conducted by Andrea Licata (Intersound Recordings).
  • A recording with Christopher Lee
    Christopher Lee
    Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

     as narrator with the English String Orchestra conducted by Sir Yehudi Menuhin
    Yehudi Menuhin
    Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

     (Nimbus Records
    Nimbus Records
    Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh...

    , 1989).
  • A Decca Phase 4 recording with Sean Connery
    Sean Connery
    Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...

     as narrator, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

     conducted by Antal Doráti
    Antal Doráti
    Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...

     (Decca Records
    Decca Records
    Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

    , 1965).
  • Peter Ustinov
    Peter Ustinov
    Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...

     was the narrator for two recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra
    Philharmonia Orchestra
    The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

    , one conducted by Herbert von Karajan
    Herbert von Karajan
    Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

     (Angel Records
    Angel Records
    Angel Records is a record label belonging to EMI. It was formed in 1953 and specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score...

     35638, 1956) and one conducted by Philip Ellis
    Philip Ellis
    Philip Constable Ellis was a Welsh Anglo-Catholic clergyman, and one of the earliest Tractarians in north Wales.Ellis studied at Beaumaris Grammar School and Jesus College, Oxford, where he matriculated at the age of 18 in 1840. He graduated in 1843 or 1844, coming under the influence of the...

     (Cirrus Classics CBS CD 105, 1989).
  • A recording with Paul Hogan
    Paul Hogan
    Paul Hogan, AM is an Australian actor best known for his role as Michael "Crocodile" Dundee from the Crocodile Dundee film series, for which he won a Golden Globe award.-Early life and career:...

     as narrator with the Orchestre de Paris
    Orchestre de Paris
    The Orchestre de Paris is a French orchestra based in Paris. The orchestra performs most of its concerts at the Salle Pleyel.-History:In 1967, following the dissolution of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, conductor Charles Munch was called on by the Minister of Culture,...

     conducted by Igor Markevitch
    Igor Markevitch
    Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...

     (EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

    , 1987), with the traditional plot but transferring the locale to the Australian Outback. (This recording was withdrawn soon after its release because of unflattering portrayals of Australia's aboriginal
    Australian Aborigines
    Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

     people and is now considered "out of print".)
  • A recording with Sterling Holloway
    Sterling Holloway
    Sterling Price Holloway, Jr. was an American character actor who appeared in 150 films and television programs. He was also a voice actor for The Walt Disney Company...

     as narrator (Walt Disney Records
    Walt Disney Records
    Walt Disney Records is a family music record label owned by the Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Records was formed in 1956 as Disneyland Records. Before that time, Disney recordings were licensed out to a variety of other labels such as . It was Walt Disney’s brother Roy O...

    ). He was also narrator for The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
  • A 1971 EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

     recording with Richard Baker
    Richard Baker (broadcaster)
    Richard Baker OBE is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall and was the first person to read the BBC Television News in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet, North London...

     as narrator, accompanied by the New Philharmonia Orchestra
    Philharmonia Orchestra
    The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

     conducted by Raymond Leppard
    Raymond Leppard
    Raymond "Def" Leppard, CBE is a British conductor and harpsichordist.He was born in London and grew up in Bath, where he was educated at the City of Bath Boys' School, now known as the Beechen Cliff School...

    .
  • A recording with Will Geer
    Will Geer
    Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....

     as narrator performed by the English Chamber Orchestra
    English Chamber Orchestra
    The English Chamber Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall...

     conducted by Johannes Somary (Vanguard Records VSO-30033).
  • A Philips
    Philips
    Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

     recording by the Boston Pops Orchestra
    Boston Pops Orchestra
    The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....

     conducted by John Williams
    John Williams
    John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

    . The American release (412 559-2) featured Dudley Moore
    Dudley Moore
    Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...

     as narrator while the UK release (412 556-2) featured Terry Wogan
    Terry Wogan
    Sir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL , or also known as Terry Wogan, is a veteran Irish radio and television broadcaster who holds dual Irish and British citizenship. Wogan has worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career...

     as narrator.
  • A 1975 Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

     recording featuring Hermione Gingold
    Hermione Gingold
    Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...

     as narrator, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Böhm
    Karl Böhm
    Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...

    .
  • A Decca
    Decca Records
    Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

     recording with Beatrice Lillie
    Beatrice Lillie
    Beatrice Gladys "Bea" Lillie was an actress and comedic performer. Following her 1920 marriage to Sir Robert Peel in England, she was known in private life as Lady Peel.-Early career:...

     as narrator with the London Symphony Orchestra
    London Symphony Orchestra
    The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

     conducted by Skitch Henderson
    Skitch Henderson
    Lyle Russell Cedric “Skitch” Henderson was a pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname reportedly derived from his ability to quickly "re-sketch" a song in a different key.- Biography :...

    .
  • A recording with Captain Kangaroo
    Captain Kangaroo
    Captain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running children's television program of its day...

     as narrator and performed by the Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

    .
  • Two recordings were performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra
    Philadelphia Orchestra
    The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

     conducted by Eugene Ormandy
    Eugene Ormandy
    Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...

    , one featuring Cyril Ritchard
    Cyril Ritchard
    Cyril Ritchard was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan....

     as narrator (Columbia Records
    Columbia Records
    Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

     ML 5183) and one featuring David Bowie
    David Bowie
    David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

     as narrator (RCA Victor
    RCA Records
    RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

    , 1978).
  • A recording featuring Mia Farrow
    Mia Farrow
    Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

     as narrator and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra
    London Symphony Orchestra
    The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

     conducted by André Previn
    André Previn
    André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...

     (EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

     ASD 2935, 1973).
  • A recording featuring Itzhak Perlman
    Itzhak Perlman
    Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

     as narrator and performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
    Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
    The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphony orchestra in Israel. It was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra, and in Hebrew as התזמורת הסימפונית הארץ ישראלית The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit...

     conducted by Zubin Mehta
    Zubin Mehta
    Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...

     (EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

    , 1986).
  • A recording featuring Lorne Greene
    Lorne Greene
    Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...

     as narrator and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra
    London Symphony Orchestra
    The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

     conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent
    Malcolm Sargent
    Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

     (RCA
    RCA
    RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

    , 1965).
  • A recording featuring Sir Alec Guinness
    Alec Guinness
    Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...

     as narrator and performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra
    Boston Pops Orchestra
    The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....

     conducted by Arthur Fiedler
    Arthur Fiedler
    Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

     (BMG, 1988).
  • A recording narrated by Jonathan Winters
    Jonathan Winters
    -Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...

     with Efrem Kurtz conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra
    Philharmonia Orchestra
    The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

     was released in 1989 on Angel/EMI. Recording also featured Winters narrating the Saint-Saëns/Ogden Nash "Carnival of the Animals".
  • A recording with Patrick Stewart
    Patrick Stewart
    Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...

     as narrator and performed by the Orchestre de L'Opéra Lyon (Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon
    Opéra National de Lyon
    Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...

    ) conducted by Kent Nagano
    Kent Nagano
    __FORCETOC__Kent George Nagano is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.-Biography:...

     (Erato
    Erato Records
    Erato Records is a record label founded in 1953 to promote French classical music. In 1992 it became part of Warner Bros. Records. In 1999 Erato launched a subsidiary Detour Records....

    , 1994).
  • A recording with Ben Kingsley
    Ben Kingsley
    Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

     as narrator, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra
    London Symphony Orchestra
    The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

     conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
    Charles Mackerras
    Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...

     (Cala Records, 1996).
  • A recording with Dame Edna Everage
    Dame Edna Everage
    Dame Edna is a character created and played by Australian dadaist performer and comedian, Barry Humphries, famous for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture," her favorite flower, the gladiola and her boisterous greeting: "Hello Possums!" As Dame Edna,...

     as narrator and performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
    Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
    The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...

     conducted by John Lanchbery
    John Lanchbery
    John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...

     (Naxos Records
    Naxos Records
    Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...

    , 1997).
  • A recording with Melissa Joan Hart
    Melissa Joan Hart
    Melissa Joan Catherine Hart is an American actress, writer, television director, television producer, singer and businesswoman...

     in her "Clarissa" persona from the Nickelodeon
    Nickelodeon (TV channel)
    Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...

     television series Clarissa Explains It All
    Clarissa Explains It All
    Clarissa Explains It All is an American teen sitcom that aired on Nickelodeon. Created by Mitchell Kriegman, it aired for five seasons for a total of 65 episodes from March 23, 1991, to December 3, 1994, and then went into reruns....

    as narrator and performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
    Boston Symphony Orchestra
    The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

     conducted by Seiji Ozawa
    Seiji Ozawa
    is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...

     (Sony Classical, 1994).
  • Erich Kunzel
    Erich Kunzel
    Erich Kunzel, Jr. was an American orchestra conductor. Called the "Prince of Pops" by the Chicago Tribune, he performed with a number of leading pops and symphony orchestras, especially the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra , which he led for over 44 years.-Early life and career:Kunzel was born to...

     and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
    Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
    The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is a pops orchestra based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, founded in 1977 out of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Its members are also the members of the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Pops is managed by the same administration...

     recorded two versions, one with Tom Seaver
    Tom Seaver
    George Thomas "Tom" Seaver , nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "The Franchise", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched from 1967-1986 for four different teams in his career, but is noted primarily for his time with the New York Mets...

     as narrator (MMG
    Mosley Music Group
    Mosley Music Group is a record label created by producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley. It operates as an imprint of, and is distributed through, Universal Music Group's Interscope Records.-History:...

    ) and another version in 1979 with Carol Channing
    Carol Channing
    Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...

     as narrator (Caedmon Records
    Caedmon Audio
    HarperCollins Audio is a record label that specializes in audio books and other literary content. Formerly Caedmon Records, the name was changed when the label switched to CD-only production. Its marketing tag-line was Caedmon: a Third Dimension for the Printed Page.Caedmon was formed in 1953 by...

     TC-1623).
  • A recording with George Raft
    George Raft
    George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

     as narrator and performed by the London Festival Orchestra
    London Festival Orchestra
    The London Festival Orchestra was established in the 1950s as the 'house orchestra' for Decca Records. In 1980 it was incorporated as an independent performing orchestra under Ross Pople....

     conducted by Stanley Black
    Stanley Black
    Stanley Black OBE was an English Bandleader, Composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He wrote and arranged many film scores and recorded prolifically for the Decca label...

     (London SPC-21084). In this version, the story is reformulated as a gangster tale in the style of the Hollywood films that Raft had once acted in.
  • A recording with Sting was made by Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

     and played by Claudio Abbado
    Claudio Abbado
    Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

     and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
    Chamber Orchestra of Europe
    The Chamber Orchestra of Europe , established in 1981, is administratively based in London. The orchestra comprises about 60 members coming from across Europe. The players pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of eminent chamber groups, and as tutors and professors of music...

    . This was also used as the soundtrack to the television special Peter and the Wolf: A Prokofiev Fantasy.
  • A recording narrated by David Attenborough
    David Attenborough
    Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...

     for BBC Music Magazine
    BBC music magazine
    BBC Music Magazine is a magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Reflecting the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, the magazine is devoted primarily to classical music, though with sections on jazz and world music. Each edition comes...

     (free CD with the June 2000 issue).
  • A recording with Sharon Stone
    Sharon Stone
    Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...

     as narrator released by Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon
    Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

     as part of A Classic Tale: Music for Our Children (289 471 171-2, 2001) and performed by James Levine
    James Levine
    James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

     conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Orchestra of St. Luke's
    The Orchestra of St. Luke's is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City.It was founded in the summer of 1979 at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York....

    .
  • A recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Stephen Simon, conductor, Yadu (aka Dr. Konrad Czynski), narrator, Bonnie Ward Simon, elucidator of Peter and the Wolf with additional educational and entertaining tracks including Russian folk music with the Trio Voronezh, Prokofiev's life, and a music lesson by Maestro Simon. Part of Maestro Classics' Stories in Music series of new classics for narrator and orchestra.
  • A 1984 recording with William F. Buckley, Jr.
    William F. Buckley, Jr.
    William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...

     narrating made by Leopold Hager
    Leopold Hager
    Leopold Hager is an Austrian conductor , known for his interpretations of works from the First Viennese School ....

     and the Orchestra of Radio/TV Luxembourg. (Proarte Digital Records).

Walt Disney, 1946

Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 produced an animated version
Peter and the Wolf (1946 film)
An animated dramatization of the 1936 musical composition by Sergei Prokofiev, produced by Walt Disney, with Sterling Holloway providing the voice of the narrator. It was originally released theatrically in 1946 as a segment in Make Mine Music...

 of the work in 1946, with Sterling Holloway
Sterling Holloway
Sterling Price Holloway, Jr. was an American character actor who appeared in 150 films and television programs. He was also a voice actor for The Walt Disney Company...

 providing the voice of the narrator. It was released theatrically as a segment of Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....

, then re-issued the next year, accompanying a re-issue of Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

(as a short subject before the film), then separately on home video in the 1990s.
This version makes several changes to the original story, for example:
  • During the character introduction, the pets are given names: "Sasha" the bird, "Sonia" the duck, and "Ivan" the cat.
  • As the cartoon begins, Peter and his friends already know there is a wolf nearby, and are preparing to catch him.
  • The hunters get names in a later part of the story: "Misha", "Yasha" and "Vladimir".
  • Peter day-dreams of hunting and catching the wolf and exits the garden carrying a wooden "pop gun
    Pop gun
    A pop gun is a toy gun that uses air pressure to fire a small tethered projectile out of a barrel via piston action...

    " rifle with the purpose of hunting the wolf.
  • At the end, in a complete reversal of the original (and to make the story more child-friendly), the narrator reveals that the duck Sonia has not been eaten by the wolf. (The wolf was earlier shown chasing the duck, which hides in an old tree's hollow trunk. The wolf attacks out of view, and returns in view with some of the duck's feathers in his mouth and licking his jaws. Peter, the cat, and the bird assume the duck has been eaten. After the wolf has been caught, the bird Sasha is shown mourning the duck. The duck comes out of the tree trunk at that point and they are happily reunited).
  • In Belle's Tales of Friendship
    Belle's Tales of Friendship
    Belle's Tales of Friendship is a live-action/animated Disney film released direct-to-video as a midquel to Beauty and the Beast. It was also released to help promote Disney Channel's television series, Sing Me a Story with Belle, for which Belle tells stories about classic cartoons such as The...

    , The Disney version of Peter and the Wolf is featured and narrated by Belle instead of Sterling Holloway.
  • This version of Peter and the Wolf was featured in Disney's House of Mouse
    Disney's House of Mouse
    Disney's House of Mouse is an American animated television series, produced by Walt Disney Television, that originally aired from 2001 to 2003-Premise:...

    , and characters from it appeared in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    Who Framed Roger Rabbit
    Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...

    , and an audio recording of this version with expanded narration by Sterling Holloway was released on Disneyland Records
    Disneyland Records
    Disneyland Records is the original name of the Walt Disney Company's record company.After long associations with primarily RCA Victor Records, with a few select titles on Capitol, Disneyland Records was established by the Disney studio in 1956 with its first release entitled A Child's Garden of...

     (DQ-1242). For one of his television programs, Disney recalled how Prokofiev himself visited the Disney studio, eventually inspiring the making of this animated version. Disney used an actor to re-create how the composer sat at a piano and played the themes from the score.

Russia, 1958

The Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm
Soyuzmultfilm
Soyuzmultfilm is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Over the years it has gained international attention and respect, garnering numerous awards both at home and abroad. Noted for a great variety of style, it is regarded as the most influential animation studio of the former Soviet Union...

 also produced a version of the work in 1958. It is puppet stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

 animation, directed by Anatoly Karanovich and narrated by I. Medvedyeva. This version makes the following changes to the story:
  • In the beginning the bird sees the wolf in the forest and warns Peter's grandfather, who goes to get the hunters and tells Peter not to leave the fenced-in yard.
  • The cat, after failing to catch the bird and duck, goes to the forest to solicit the help of the wolf.
  • Peter picks up the duck and runs to safety, leaving the cat outside with the wolf.
  • The wolf, not being very particular, eats the cat.

This version has not been published much outside of the ex-USSR.

British-Polish coproduction, 2006

In 2006, Suzie Templeton
Suzie Templeton
Suzie Templeton is a director, animator and writer of stop motion animation films. She is best known for her 2006 animated adaptation of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf....

 and Hugh Welchman directed and produced respectively, a stop-motion animated adaptation, Peter and the Wolf. It is unusual in its lack of any dialogue or narration, the story being told only in images and sound and interrupted by sustained periods of silence. The soundtrack is performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...

, and the film received its premiere with a live accompaniment in the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

. The film won the Annecy Cristal and the Audience Award at the 2007 Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring every two years, the festival became annual in 1998...

, and won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. This version also makes some changes to the original Prokofiev story; for example:
  • Peter bumps into one of the "hunters" (teenage bullies in this telling) who throws him in a garbage bin and aims at him with his rifle to scare him; the second hunter watches without interfering (thus, a dislike towards the hunter/bullies is immediately created).
  • Because of a broken wing, the bird has trouble flying and takes Peter's balloon to help it get aloft.
  • After Peter has captured the wolf in a net, the hunter gets him in his rifle's telescopic sight coincidentally, but just before shooting, the second hunter stumbles, falls on him and makes him miss the shot.
  • The caged wolf is brought into the village on a cart where Peter's grandfather tries to sell it. The hunter comes to the container and sticks his rifle in to intimidate the animal (as he did with Peter earlier on). At that time Peter throws the net on the hunter, who becomes tangled in it.
  • Before the grandfather has made a deal, Peter unlocks the cart after looking into the eyes of the wolf. They walk side-by-side through the awestruck crowd and then the freed wolf runs off in the direction of the silver moon shining over the forest.

Others

  • In 1958, a videotaped television special entitled Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf, with Art Carney
    Art Carney
    Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....

     as main entertainer, along with the Bil Baird
    Bil Baird
    William Britton Baird , professional name Bil Baird, but often referred to as Bill Baird, was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century.One of his better known creations was Charlemane the lion...

     Marionettes, was presented by the American Broadcasting Company
    American Broadcasting Company
    The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

    , and was successful enough to have been repeated twice. The show had an original storyline in which Carney interacted with some talking marionette animals, notably the wolf, who was the troublemaker of the group. This first half was presented as a musical, with adapted music from Lieutenant Kijé
    Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev)
    Lieutenant Kijé is the score composed by Sergei Prokofiev for the 1934 Soviet film Lieutenant Kijé directed by Aleksandr Faintsimmer based on the novel of the same title by Yury Tynyanov.-Suite from Lieutenant Kijé:...

    and other Prokofiev works which had special English lyrics fitted into them. The program then segued into a complete performance of Peter and the Wolf, played exactly as written by the composer, and "mimed" by both "human" and "animal" marionettes. The conclusion of the program again featured Carney interacting with the animal marionettes. The show was nominated for three Emmy Award
    Emmy Award
    An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

    s.
  • Hans Conried
    Hans Conried
    Hans Georg Conried, Jr. was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor.-Early years:He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg Conried, Sr. and Edith Beyr Gildersleeve. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna,...

     recorded the narration with a Dixieland musical band in or around 1960. Since there is no oboe in a Dixieland band, the part of the duck was played by a saxophone.
  • The Clyde Valley Stompers recorded a jazz version on Parlophone Records (45-R 4928) in 1962, which registered on the popular music charts of the time.
  • Allan Sherman
    Allan Sherman
    Allan Sherman was an American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer , became the fastest-selling record album up to that time...

     parodied the work in a 1964 album called Peter and the Commissar, made with Arthur Fiedler
    Arthur Fiedler
    Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

     and the Boston Pops Orchestra
    Boston Pops Orchestra
    The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....

    .
  • A 1966 version by Hammond organ
    Hammond organ
    The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...

     player 'The Incredible Jimmy Smith'
    Jimmy Smith (musician)
    Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...

    , arranged by Oliver Nelson
    Oliver Nelson
    Oliver Edward Nelson was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.-Early life and career:...

     was without narration, and was an improvisation
    Improvisation
    Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

     based on the original themes.
  • In 1975, Robin Lumley
    Robin Lumley
    Robin Lumley is a British jazz-fusion musician.He is a cousin of the actress Joanna Lumley. He started playing drums in a student band at college, and that band entered the finals of the Melody Maker band talent contest in the early 70s....

     and Jack Lancaster
    Jack Lancaster
    Jack Lancaster is a British composer, record producer and musician.In the late 1960s, Lancaster co-founded the British rock group Blodwyn Pig with Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams...

     produced a rock music version. Their music makes use of some of Prokofiev's original themes. Along with Vivian Stanshall
    Vivian Stanshall
    Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, painter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.-The great...

     as the narrator, the staff is illustrious (among others Gary Moore
    Gary Moore
    Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....

    , Manfred Mann
    Manfred Mann
    Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...

    , Phil Collins
    Phil Collins
    Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

    , Bill Bruford
    Bill Bruford
    William Scott "Bill" Bruford is an English drummer, percussionist, composer, producer, and record label owner. He was the original drummer for the progressive rock group Yes, from 1968-1972. Bruford has performed for numerous popular acts since the early 1970s, including a stint as touring...

    , Stéphane Grappelli
    Stéphane Grappelli
    Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....

    , Alvin Lee
    Alvin Lee
    Alvin Lee is an English rock guitarist and singer. He began playing guitar at the age of 13, and with Leo Lyons formed the core of the band Ten Years After in 1960...

    , Cozy Powell
    Cozy Powell
    Colin Flooks , better known as Cozy Powell, was an English rock drummer who made his name with many major rock bands.-Early history:...

    , Brian Eno
    Brian Eno
    Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

    , Jon Hiseman
    Jon Hiseman
    Jon Hiseman is an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer and music publisher.-Career:...

    ); the music is very heterogeneous: from psychedelic
    Psychedelic
    The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...

     rock music to jazz (Grappelli's violin solo on the motif of the cat).
  • The 1983 film A Christmas Story
    A Christmas Story
    A Christmas Story is a 1983 American Christmas comedy film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob Clark...

    features music from Peter and the Wolf prominently during scenes of the character Scut Farkus as bully to the main characters in the film. The surname Farkus is a variation of Farkas
    Farkas
    Farkas is a Hungarian surname or a given name .-List of persons with the surname:* Andrea Farkas, Hungarian handball goalkeeper...

    , which is Hungarian for "wolf."
  • A sequel to the story was written by Justin Locke during 1985 using the original score. "Peter VS. the Wolf" is the Wolf's trial, where he defends himself against the charge of "Duckicide in the first degree, with one gulp." The original music is presented as evidence, but then the Wolf calls individual musicians to the stand and cross-examines them. It requires five actors for a stage presentation.
  • In 1985, Arnie Zane
    Arnie Zane
    Arnie Zane was an American photographer, choreographer, and dancer. He is best known as the co-founder and co-artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.-Early years:...

     choreographed a punk music ballet version of Peter and the Wolf.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic
    "Weird Al" Yankovic
    Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...

     and Wendy Carlos
    Wendy Carlos
    Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...

     produced a comedic version in 1988, using a synthesized orchestra and many additions to the story and music (Peter captures the wolf using his grandfather's dental floss, leading to the moral of the story, "Oral hygiene is very important.").
  • In 1989, An episode of the Muppet Babies entitled, "Skeeter and the Wolf", where Skeeter filling in for Peter, Gonzo as the bird, Scooter as the cat, Fozzie as the duck, Nanny as the grandparent, then Kermit and Piggy as the hunters.
  • A 1990 episode of Tiny Toon Adventures
    Tiny Toon Adventures
    Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, usually referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures or simply Tiny Toons, is an American animated television series created by Tom Ruegger and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It began production as a result of Warner Bros....

    titled "Buster and the Wolverine" featured Elmyra Duff
    Elmyra Duff
    Elmyra Jessica Duff is a cartoon character from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. She is one of the main characters from the show. Elmyra is voiced by Cree Summer in all of her appearances...

     providing narration for a story where Buster Bunny
    Babs and Buster Bunny
    Babs and Buster Bunny are cartoon characters from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. They are the stars of the show— they both appear in the Tiny Toons logo, and the show usually begins and ends with their gags. Buster is voiced by Charlie Adler for most of the...

     and his friends, represented with musical instruments, combat an evil "wolverine". In this episode, the characters' instruments are: Buster Bunny, a trumpet; Babs Bunny
    Babs and Buster Bunny
    Babs and Buster Bunny are cartoon characters from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. They are the stars of the show— they both appear in the Tiny Toons logo, and the show usually begins and ends with their gags. Buster is voiced by Charlie Adler for most of the...

    , a harp
    Harp
    The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

    ; Furrball, a violin; Sweetie, a flute
    Flute
    The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

    ; Hamton J. Pig
    Hamton J. Pig
    Hamton J. Pig is a cartoon character from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. He is arguably the fourth main character on the show. Hamton is voiced by Don Messick. Hamton is a young male pig with blue overalls. He attends Acme Looniversity and lives in Acme...

    , a tuba
    Tuba
    The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

    ; Plucky Duck
    Plucky Duck
    Plucky Allen Duck is a cartoon character from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. He is also the titular character in Gary A. Lewis's Plucky Duck in the Summer Job. He is arguably the third main character on the show after Buster and Babs. Plucky is voiced by Joe...

    , a bike
    Bicycle
    A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

     horn
    Horn (acoustic)
    A horn is a tapered sound guide designed to provide an acoustic impedance match between a sound source and free air. This has the effect of maximizing the efficiency with which sound waves from the particular source are transferred to the air...

     (later, bagpipes
    Bagpipes
    Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...

    , then an organ
    Organ (music)
    The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

    , and finally a synthesizer); and the wolverine
    Wolverine
    The wolverine, pronounced , Gulo gulo , also referred to as glutton, carcajou, skunk bear, or quickhatch, is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae . It is a stocky and muscular carnivore, more closely resembling a small bear than other mustelids...

    , drums.
  • Peter Schickele
    Peter Schickele
    Johann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...

     (aka P. D. Q. Bach
    P. D. Q. Bach
    P. D. Q. Bach is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a five-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the Bach family...

    ), wrote an alternate, comedic text for the score entitled Sneaky Pete and the Wolf, converting the story into a Western, including a showdown between Sneaky Pete and the gunslinger El Lobo (which never happens due to some local boys giving El Lobo a hotfoot and sticking a paper airplane in his eye and Sneaky Pete's girlfriend Laura rendering El Lobo unconscious with a vacuum cleaner). It was recorded with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
    Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
    The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001...

     conducted by Yoel Levi
    Yoel Levi
    Yoel Levi is a musician and conductor. Born in Romania, he grew up in Israel. He studied at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music, earning a Master of Arts degree with distinction. He also studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music under Mendi Rodan. Levi won the 1978 International Besançon Competition...

     in 1993.
  • In the 1993 Simpsons episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled
    Krusty Gets Kancelled
    "Krusty Gets Kancelled" is the twenty-second and final episode of The Simpsons fourth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 13, 1993. In the episode, a new show featuring a puppet named Gabbo premieres in Springfield and competes with Krusty the Clown's show...

    ", guest star Hugh Hefner
    Hugh Hefner
    Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...

     plays a portion of Peter and the Wolf on wine glasses.
  • In 1995 comedian Harry Shearer
    Harry Shearer
    Harry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and director. He is known for his long-running role on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show...

     performed a sketch on his public radio series Le Show
    Le Show
    Le Show is a weekly syndicated public radio show hosted by satirist Harry Shearer.The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy...

    where Kato Kaelin
    Kato Kaelin
    Brian Jerard "Kato" Kaelin is an American radio and television personality who gained fame as a witness during the 1994–95 murder trial of O. J. Simpson.-Personal life:...

    , a primary witness in the then-current O.J. Simpson murder trial, narrated Peter and the Wolf (in the same stammering, disoriented manner he had provided testimony) for a PBS
    Public Broadcasting Service
    The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

     special, ostensibly accompanied by New Age
    New Age
    The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

     musician/TV host John Tesh
    John Tesh
    John Frank Tesh is an American pianist and composer of pop music, as well as a radio host and television presenter. His 10-year-old 'Intelligence for Your Life Radio Show' reaches 14.2 Million listeners/week, and is syndicated by Teshmedia on 400 stations in US, Canada, and the UK...

    .
  • In March 1996, a 30-minute television film was made with a mix of live action and animation and the characters from the story were designed by Chuck Jones
    Chuck Jones
    Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...

    . The film featured Kirstie Alley
    Kirstie Alley
    Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...

    , Lloyd Bridges
    Lloyd Bridges
    Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. Bridges is best known for his role of Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, the most-popular syndicated American TV series in 1958...

     and Ross Malinger
    Ross Malinger
    Ross Aaron Malinger is an American actor who co-starred as Jonah Baldwin in the 1993 romantic film Sleepless In Seattle. He starred in the 1997 comedy Toothless, along with Kirstie Alley, portraying the second main character of the film...

     in a live-action "wraparound" segment and as voices in the story (Ms. Alley as the Narrator, Mr. Bridges as "The Grandfather" and Ross as "Peter"). This version also keeps the duck-friendly ending by having the swallowed duck pop out of the wolf's mouth alive, well, and dancing as the wolf is being captured. The wolf, described as "not a ballet
    Ballet
    Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

     fan," grabs the duck again before being forced to drop him by the hunters. As the story ends, Peter finds the duck crouching at the pond's edge shivering and frightened because of his terrible experience, and Peter reassures him that he (Peter) would always be there to protect him. This version even places the bird as a mother, with six eggs that hatch near the ending. The music for this version was performed by the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
    RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
    The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra was an American symphony orchestra founded in 1940 by the RCA Victor music label. Based in Camden, New Jersey, the orchestra made numerous recordings up through the early 1960s with notable conductors like Leopold Stokowski and Leonard Bernstein. A number of their...

     conducted by George Daugherty
    George Daugherty
    George Daugherty is an Irish-American conductor, director, producer, and writer.Daugherty has conducted international ballet companies and most of America's major symphony orchestras, and has continuing guest conducting relationships with the Cleveland Orchestra , the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los...

    .
  • During September 1996, Coldcut
    Coldcut
    Coldcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...

     (a duo of scratch/mix djs from south London) released a scratch version of the main theme, included on the track "More Beats + Pieces", from their album Let Us Play!
    Let Us Play!
    Let Us Play! is the fourth album by Coldcut, released on 8 September 1997. It was their first album to be released on their own label, Ninja Tune.-Side one:# "Return to Margin"# "Atomic Moog 2000 "# "Noah's Toilet"...

    .
  • In 1997, George MacKay (actor)
    George MacKay (actor)
    -Biography:MacKay was born in London, England. At the age of five, he produced, directed and created his very own production of the play Peter and the Wolf with his friends playing the characters...

     produced and directed his own version of Peter and the Wolf, casting himself as the Wolf.
  • Peter and the Wolf was choreographed by Matthew Hart for television in 1997, performed by the dancers of the Royal Ballet School
    Royal Ballet School
    The Royal Ballet School is one of the most famous classical ballet schools in the world and is the associate school of the Royal Ballet, a leading international ballet company based at the Royal Opera House in London...

     and narrated by Sir Anthony Dowell
    Anthony Dowell
    Sir Anthony James Dowell, CBE is a retired English ballet dancer and former Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet. He studied at the Hampshire School and The Royal Ballet Schools, before joining the Royal Ballet in 1961...

    .
  • In 2001, National Public Radio produced Peter and the Wolf: A Special Report, which treats the familiar plot as if it were a developing news story. Robert Siegel, Linda Wertheimer, Ann Taylor, Steve Inskeep of NPR's All Things Considered report on the event against a performance of the score by the Virginia Symphony conducted by JoAnn Falletta.
  • Sesame Workshop
    Sesame Workshop
    Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop , is a Worldwide American non-profit organization behind the production of several educational children's programs that have run on public broadcasting around the world...

     produced a version with Sesame Street
    Sesame Street
    Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

    characters in 2001 as told by way of a trip to a Boston Pops Orchestra
    Boston Pops Orchestra
    The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....

     concert. Dubbed as "Elmo's Musical Adventure", the story unfolds inside Baby Bear
    The Bear family
    The Bear family are a family unit of characters on Sesame Street, based on The Three Bears of Goldilocks fame, plus a younger sibling.-Family Description:Curly Bear, Mama Bear, and Papa Bear have never appeared on the show without Baby Bear...

    's imagination as he attends a performance with Papa Bear, conducted by Keith Lockhart
    Keith Lockhart
    For the baseball player, see Keith Lockhart Keith Lockhart , to Newton Frederick and Marilyn Jean Woodyard Lockhart, is an American orchestral conductor....

    . In the story, Peter is played by Elmo
    Elmo
    Elmo is a Muppet character on the children's television show Sesame Street. He is a furry red monster and currently hosts the last full 15 minute segment on Sesame Street, Elmo's World, which is aimed at toddlers. His puppeteer, Kevin Clash, uses falsetto to produce his voice...

    , the cat by Oscar the Grouch
    Oscar the Grouch
    Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character on the television program Sesame Street. He has a green body , has no nose , and lives in a trash can. His favorite thing in life is trash; evidence for this is the song "I Love Trash". A running theme is his compulsive hoarding of seemingly useless items...

    , the duck by Telly Monster
    Telly Monster
    Telly Monster, known usually as just Telly, is an eternally worrying, fuchsia monster Muppet on Sesame Street. He is puppeteered by Martin P. Robinson....

    , the bird by Zoe
    Zoe (Sesame Street)
    Zoe is a 3-year-old, orange female monster on Sesame Street, performed by Fran Brill. She was designed in her color to complement her best friend Elmo, who was gaining popularity at her introduction in 1993....

    , the grandfather by Big Bird
    Big Bird
    Big Bird is a protagonist of the children's television show Sesame Street. Big Bird, like many of the other Sesame Street characters, is a Muppet character. He is sometimes referred to simply as "Bird" by his friends....

    , and the hunters by the Two-Headed Monster. Each character is followed around by a soloist playing that character's instrument, but Telly Monster's "Duck" quits the story after finding out that the wolf eats the duck (he returns as one of the hunters later).
  • In February 2004, ex-president Bill Clinton
    Bill Clinton
    William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

    , Mikhail Gorbachev
    Mikhail Gorbachev
    Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

    , and Sophia Loren
    Sophia Loren
    Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...

     won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children
    Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children
    The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality "spoken word" performances aimed at children...

     for narrating the album Peter and the Wolf/Wolf Tracks
    Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf
    Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf was a 2005 album that combined the orchestral composition Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev with a 2002 composition, Wolf Tracks, which had its score written by French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus and text written by Walt Kreamer...

    . This recording was performed by the Russian National Orchestra
    Russian National Orchestra
    The Russian National Orchestra premiered in Moscow in 1990.It was the first Russian orchestra to perform at the Apostolic Palace, Vatican and in Israel....

     conducted by Kent Nagano
    Kent Nagano
    __FORCETOC__Kent George Nagano is an American conductor and opera administrator. He is currently the music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.-Biography:...

     and included Ms. Loren narrating Peter and the Wolf and Clinton narrating The Wolf and Peter by Jean-Pascal Beintus
    Jean-Pascal Beintus
    Jean-Pascal Beintus is a French composer. Born in Toulouse, France in 1966, he studied double bass and composition at the conservatories of Nice, Lyon and Paris during the 1980s. When John Eliot Gardiner created the Lyon Opéra Orchestra in 1983, he selected Beintus as a founding double bass player...

    , which is also a narrated orchestral piece, but the story is told from the perspective of the wolf and has the theme of letting animals live in peace.
  • In 2004, Russian supermodel Tatiana Sorokko
    Tatiana Sorokko
    Tatiana Sorokko is a Russian-born American model, fashion journalist and haute couture collector. She walked the runways for the world's most prominent designers and fashion houses, appeared on covers of leading fashion magazines, and became the first Russian model of the post-Soviet period to gain...

     performed with the Russian National Orchestra
    Russian National Orchestra
    The Russian National Orchestra premiered in Moscow in 1990.It was the first Russian orchestra to perform at the Apostolic Palace, Vatican and in Israel....

    , on tour in the United States, and she was the narrator at the Wind Quintet's debut performance of Jean-Pascal Beintus
    Jean-Pascal Beintus
    Jean-Pascal Beintus is a French composer. Born in Toulouse, France in 1966, he studied double bass and composition at the conservatories of Nice, Lyon and Paris during the 1980s. When John Eliot Gardiner created the Lyon Opéra Orchestra in 1983, he selected Beintus as a founding double bass player...

    ' Wolf Tracks, at the Phillips Collection
    Phillips Collection
    The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...

     in Washington, D.C. In its review of the performance, The Washington Post
    The Washington Post
    The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

     
    reported "watching a tall blond supermodel win all the Wolf Tracks applause."
  • Psy-trance
    Psychedelic trance
    Psychedelic trance, psytrance or just psy is a form of electronic music characterized by hypnotic arrangements of synthetic rhythms and complex layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It appeared in the mainstream in 1995 as with reporting of the trend of Goa trance. The genre offers variety...

     artist Eliad Grundland released a musical interpretation of the work, as Space Buddha
    Space Buddha
    Space Buddha is a psychedelic trance group from Israel.Space Buddha's lead artist is Eliad Grundland . The Space Buddha project was created in the year 1997 & since then had released six albums.The first Space Buddha album was written by Yalon Adot...

    , titled "Land of The Wolves" on his 2006 album Full Circle.
  • In 2005, theatre organ
    Theatre organ
    A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra. New designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself....

    ist Jelani Eddington performed and recorded with narrator George Woods the only existing theatre organ adaptation of Peter and the Wolf.
  • In 2006, Neil Tobin
    Neil Tobin
    Neil Tobin is a performer of magical and psychic entertainment.Since his performance material often involves themes of spirit contact—in addition to demonstrations of telepathy, precognition, magic, and even divination—he often performs as "Neil Tobin, Necromancer."-Live Performance:Since Friday...

     produced a Halloween
    Halloween
    Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

    -themed narrative called Peter and the Werewolf with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
    Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
    The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...

    , John Lanchbery
    John Lanchbery
    John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...

     conducting.
  • In November 2009, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
    The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

     performed an adaptation of Peter and the Wolf, narrated by Martin Clunes
    Martin Clunes
    Alexander Martin Clunes is an English actor and comedian. Clunes is perhaps best known for his roles as Gary Strang in Men Behaving Badly, Doctor Martin Ellingham in Doc Martin and the title character in Reggie Perrin....

    , as part of the Durrell Wildlife Trust's 50th Anniversary Finale Concert. This took place in Fort Regent, in Saint Helier
    Saint Helier
    Saint Helier is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St. Helier has a population of about 28,000, roughly 31.2% of the total population of Jersey, and is the capital of the Island . The urban area of the parish of St...

    , Jersey
    Jersey
    Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

    , Channel Islands
    Channel Islands
    The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

    .
  • In 2009, an Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps
    Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps
    Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps is a British and American CGI animated television series premiered on September 5, 2009, Nick Jr. in 2009, and Discovery Kids Latin America in 2010. A continuation of the Angelina Ballerina series of children's books by Katharine Holabird, the author and Helen...

    episode named "Angelina's Musical Day", Angelina and her friends do a school play of Peter and the Wolf.
  • 2010 Denver musicians Munly and the Lupercalians released Petr and the Wulf, an alternative take on the original story. Told from the different perspectives of all the characters: Grandfater, Petr, Scarewulf, Cat, Bird, The Three Hunters, Duk, and Wulf. Released on the Alternative Tentacles
    Alternative Tentacles
    Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...

     label.
  • On 19 December 2010, comedian Harry Shearer
    Harry Shearer
    Harry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and director. He is known for his long-running role on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show...

     again performed a sketch on his public radio series Le Show
    Le Show
    Le Show is a weekly syndicated public radio show hosted by satirist Harry Shearer.The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy...

    in a style as might be presented by CNN
    CNN
    Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

     news personalities Larry King
    Larry King
    Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....

    , Wolf Blitzer
    Wolf Blitzer
    Wolf Isaac Blitzer is an American journalist who has been a CNN reporter since 1990. Blitzer is currently the host of the newscast The Situation Room and was the host of the Sunday talk show Late Edition until it was discontinued on January 11, 2009...

    , and Anderson Cooper
    Anderson Cooper
    Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK