Prokofiev’s orchestral composition/children’s story Peter and the Wolf is familiar to everyone who had to take music appreciation as a schoolkid: briefly, a young boy named Peter and his animal friends are spending a day by his grandfather’s pond when a wolf attacks. Peter, with his ingenuity and some help from a bird, captures the wolf, beating a group of hunters to the prize, and the story ends with a parade as the wolf is carted off to a zoo. Every character has a distinct musical theme played on a different instrument, and Peter’s theme alone is surely one of the the most recognizable pieces of classical music from the 20th Century.
If you’re feeling like a quick-and-dirty head trip, by all means visit Peter and the Wolf’s Wikipedia page and hit ‘play’ on all the themes at once.
Another highly worthy Prokofiev head trip was released in 1975—an art rock Peter and the Wolf featuring a laundry list of British pysch, blues, and prog luminaries. The narrator was the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s Viv Stanshall, in a remarkably subdued performance. The various themes were performed by Manfred Mann, Chris Spedding, and Stephane Grappelli, among others. Already pretty cool right there, but the wolf was memorably performed by Brian Eno, and the hunters were played by a quartet of prog drummers—Jon Hiseman, Cozy Powell, Bill Bruford and Phil Collins.
It’s completely sick—this Discogs page has the best breakdown I’ve found of who played on what. Everyone who would go on in 1976 to form the original lineup of Brand X played on this record, so accordingly it crosses the sometimes fine line from prog to fusion more than I’d typically go in for, but fuck it, ace playing is ace playing and the music often veers away from strict obeisance to Prokofiev’s themes into improvisation and even original composition.
The album’s initial international releases on RSO in 1975 and 1976, packaged with a full-color art book, were its only significant releases. Reissues have been few and mostly confined to Japan, though a US CD did pop up on the Viceroy label in 1993, and a CD seems to be in print again for the time being, on the Gonzo Import label. You can hear it right here. Eno’s part is wonderful, and if that happens to be all you care about, it begins at 15:40, but the whole thing is worth a listen.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
David Bowie narrates ‘Peter and the Wolf,’ 1978