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This product is also available as a download from |
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Available From: 01 August 2008 |
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Prokofiev wrote the music for Peter and the Wolf in four weeks to his own text, and spent another week orchestrating it. The idea was to interweave the story-telling with music of easily recognisable colours and contours, each character having its own motif played every time by the same instrument, and each identified by the story-teller in the introduction. In some ways it was an extension of a much earlier idea he had when, in 1914 he set The Ugly Duckling for singer and piano.
Following the success of Romeo and Juliet, Prokofiev was quickly asked to compose another, Cinderella based on the traditional fairy tale. He had sketched a draft of two acts when war broke out between the USSR and Germany, and he returned to it only in 1943. The music was finished the following year, but production delayed until the war had ended. It was premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 21 November 1945. |
Reviews
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The composer’s widow contributes a spirited narration of Peter and the Wolf, whose delicious score is played and conducted in roistering, colourful style – so is the Cinderella Suite
Classic FM Magazine
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For many, the most popular reissue in the series will be the utterly delightful performance of Peter and the Wolf, the narration of which is both authentically and beautifully delivered by Prokofiev’s widow Lina, then in her late eighties. As the music is outstandingly well played and then recording is magnificent, this has to be the finest version ever of this perennial masterpiece
International Record Review
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