Musical fairy tale by Sergei Prokofiev
No work seems better suited to familiarizing children with the instruments of a symphony orchestra than Sergei Prokofiev's musical fairy tale "Peter and the Wolf". This classic of concert education was created in 1936 for the Moscow Children's Theater.
The play is based on familiar stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood". Once again, the evil wolf is defeated - in Prokofiev's version it is little Petya, a young pioneer in the original, who overcomes the dangerous animal with cunning and ingenuity. In the end, the wolf is brought to the zoo by hunters. In addition to the string quartet (Peter) and flute (Vogel), Prokofiev used the oboe as a quacking duck, while the sly cat is recognizable in the clarinet staccato. The grumpy grandfather appears as a bassoon. Three French horns characterize the wolf. The hunters' shots are clearly audible in the percussion (timpani, drums). And, as always, all this is conveyed by a narrator in an exciting and child-friendly way.
