Children’s Classics #6 – Musical fairy tale “Peter and the wolf”: The duck that quacked in the wolf’s belly
“Peter and the wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev takes centre stage at Mayflower Bookshop in Leiden on Sunday, August 31. At 4pm that day, expert in Slavic literature and languages Louis Smit will give a lecture in Dutch on this musical Russian fairy tale as 6th event in the bookshop’s Children’s Classics series.
“Peter and the wolf” marked a first introduction to music for many at school or beyond. The animal and human characters are represented by musical instruments. For instance, the little bird is a flute and the grandfather is a bassoon.
Russian composer Prokofiev wrote the piece on commission. It had an educational purpose. It was premiered in Moscow in 1936, at a time when Russia was under the strict rule of Stalin, who believed that art should support and propagate communist ideology.
Famous narrators
There are several recordings of “Peter and the Wolf” with celebrities as narrators, such as Sean Connery, Bill Clinton and David Bowie. Well-known in the Netherlands are the versions with Paul de Leeuw and Ramses Shaffy.
This year’s Children’s Classics series has previously featured Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh and Annie M.G. Schmidt’s rebellious work.
Sunday August 31, 16.00. Admission: free. Mayflower Bookshop, Breestraat 70, Leiden.