Customer Reviews

Prokofiev - Peter and the Wolf / Narrated by Patrick Stewart · Opera de Lyon · Nagano

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Peter and the Wolf is my favorite piece of music from my childhood, and I was quite pleased when someone gave me this CD for by birthday this year. The musicianship and narration are quite good: expressive and emotive.

Unfortunately, the volume range on the CD is quite wide, ranging from inaudible to bowel-quaking. In the mix, the orchestra is either at one extreme or the other, but the narration is almost always too quiet to make out against the music. In addition, I can hear several places in the piece where gain peaks have introduced distortion into the sound.

The music and narration are very well done, but the recording job was botched big time. I would recommend you purchase a different copy of Peter and the Wolf.

I'm a real Patrick Stewart fan, so when I was looking for a copy of Peter and the Wolf for my daughter, this one caught my eye.

The music is excellent, and Patrick Stewart's narration is wonderful, but the recording level on the CD is so low that you must turn the volume up much farther than normal to hear it. When you kick the CD out (if you're using a player that defaults back to an FM receiver, you have to remember to turn the volume down first, or it'll blow your eardrums out.

In addition, the recording levels vary far too much across the recording. The levels for Stewart's narration, for instance, is very low. You have to turn it up to hear him, but then the drums which represent the hunter's rifles will almost blow you out of your chair. It gets to be very tiresome having to listen with one hand on the volume knob all the time. I was dissapointed.

Perhaps I have the advantage of having a wonderful stereo system, but I do not experience the peaks and distortions that others claim on my CD of this wonderful recording. The only thing I noticed is that my volume had to be raised a bit more than usual, but there was no problem with that. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but this overall is a great piece to have.

The first piece on this disc is Sergei Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf', a musical tale written for children. 'Peter and the Wolf' was written by Prokofiev, but is derivative of an older tale.

This is really a way to introduce children to the orchestra (and was a way for Prokofiev to keep his compositions going at a time in Stalinist Russia when music was legally required to be simple and understandable). The main characters include a bird (flute), duck (oboe), cat (clarinet), Peter's grandfather (bassoon), the wolf (a trio of French horns), hunters (percussion mostly, the timpani and bass drum, but also involves woodwinds), and Peter himself (the strings sections of the orchestra).

Patrick Stewart reads the narration of the story, read over the music and in gaps prepared by Prokofiev. The strains of Peter's theme and the other animals are familiar to children all over the world, and have been for generations, as this piece has been very popular, even serving as the inspiration for a Walt Disney production of the same theme, featuring Prokofiev's music. I must confess that it is a bit hard not to visualise Captain Picard narrating this piece; on the other hand, given the nature of the Star Trek character, this is very much in keeping as something Picard might do.

The second piece on this recording is Claude Debussy's 'The Toy Box', a ballet for children. This is also a well-known piece, though perhaps not as well known at the first. It does not feature narration, and is meant largely to introduce the ballet to children. Debussy wrote several pieces for children or evocative of children, some under the inspiration of his daughter.

This is not difficult music by any means, but the Ochrestre de L'Opera de Lyon under the direction of Kent Nagano have produced a superb musical performance of both pieces. This should be a delight to children and to adults.

If you had this as a child (or young adult) you have to have it! If you didn't, you have to have it! If you have children, whether you had it or you didn't have it, you have to have it; and if you don't, you have to have it for yourself...and if you DID have it, the memories may come flooding back. I was extemely surprised to find that I knew all of Peter and the Wolf far better than I thought I did: I thought I'd beeen taken to a "Young People's Concert" in The Midwest by the nuns at our school, which I loved--but that's all I remembered, until I played it now. To my surprise I knew ALL of it. I have no idea how many times it must have been played in the classroom prior to the concert for me to know it as well as I do, but it sure wan't once, and somehow I remember visual aids to the story having been propped up in front of the classroom. Not only was this something of a revelation to me now, but a thoroughly enjoyable one.--and much appreciated, too. And it's a great introduction for people of all ages. This recording is good a good one. Patrick Stewart does a better job narrating than I expected: I expected him to be adequate, but he is better than that in that his voice has more expression to it than I expected--just the right amount. Kent Nagano and L'Orchestre de L'Opera de Lyon do a very nice job. However, other than the title and credits and track listings, there is not a blessed word about Debusssy's La Boite a Joujoux, which is subtitled Ballet for Children, accompanying, and about which I know nothing..They could have provided a little information. However, since what I was interested in most was Peter and the Wolf, then that surely is the least of it.

.... and Patrick Stewart is a GREAT narrator! My little brother and i used to listen to this story/music when we were little, and act it out as we heard it. The Peter And The Wolf story, along with the accompanying music for each character, is FANTASTIC! This brought back LOTS of great memories for me! :> Patrick Stewart does a great job of telling the story, as well. This is a great story for your kids to hear, and a good way to start them into some good music and musical instruments they may like to play someday.

I originally had been searching for the recording Sir Alec Guiness did in the '70s, however it seems to have been out of print for some time. That having been discovered, I purchased this as I was familiar with Patrick Stewart's voice. Let me add, that this was for my 5 year old son, whom I wanted to experience this at this point in his life.
We've had it a couple of weeks and we've spend HOURS listening to it. Patrick Stewart does a tremendous job narrating this classic Russian tale.
As an adult listener, Nagano and the Opera de Lyon work together as hand in glove. It sounds perfect!

Perhaps the two best reasons for recommending this CD are Patrick Stewart's sterling narration (What else would you expect from one of Britain's finest actors, who was highly regarded long before joining the cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"?) and the splendid playing of the Lyons Opera orchestra led ably by the young American conductor Kent Nagano. Unfortunately this is one of the worst CDs I've heard from Erato, since the sound quality is poorly mixed, resulting in your constant attention to variable sound levels throughout the recording. It's also a shame that there isn't any information on the Debussy ballet in the liner notes; a fine performance which occoupies the remainder of the CD. Maybe some day Warner Classics might remix this recording, producing a truly classic recording of "Peter and the Wolf".

"Peter and the Wolf" was one of my favorites as a child, and I wanted to buy a version for my 10 1/2 month old son. The record we had when I was a child featured Peter Ustinov as the narrator, but I couldn't find that version on CD. When I saw a version with Patrick Stewart as narrator, I figured I had a winner, and I'm not disappointed. Mr. Stewart delivered as expected, and the quality of the recording is top-notch. I only gave it four stars because I'm not overly thrilled with the rest of the CD, but that's not why I bought the disc. I'd definitely recommend this version.

Patrick Stewart's voice is perfect for the narration of "Peter and the Wolf". He's got a moderately low voice (baratone, maybe?) which really engages the listener into becoming a re-born fan of the story.

The orchestra plays beautifully, but it is painfully obvious that they recorded their part separate from the narration. Patrick Steward sounds as if he is in a different room with his back to the microphone. Also, even though I am a Patrick Stewart fan, I find his narration entirely too serious and stayed. He reads it more like an essay than a fun story for children.