Comparison Recordings:
Peter and the Wolf: Stokowski, NYPO,
"Captain Kangaroo" [AAD] Everest
EVC 9048
Peter and the Wolf: Tortelier, BBC PO,
David Attenborough. BBC Mus. Mag. V8
#10.
Peter and the Wolf: included in Disney’s
"Make Mine Music" video
Lieutenant Kije: Sargent, LSO [AAD]
Everest EVC 9019
Lieutenant Kije: Fritz Reiner, CSO [ADD]
RCA/BMG 60176-2
The title Lieutenant
Kije is based on a Russian pun,
where the Tsar, who spoke mostly French,
doesn’t understand Russian well, and
a report from the front reporting on
the valour of "the lieutenants,
who..." [paruchiki je] is
misread to mean "Lieutenant Kije"
[paruchik Kije] a proper name.
The Tsar wants to give this brave lieutenant
a medal and the officers, unwilling
to argue with the Tsar, produce a false
Lieutenant Kije to receive his medal.
The film then recounts his whole life
story, the Suite presenting five
highlights.
Reiner’s recording
has been generally considered the standard
performance, with brilliant but dated
sound which shows some harshness on
the peaks. Malcolm Sargent had a particular
talent for the "steel" music
by Prokofiev, although there is only
a little of that in Lieutenant Kije;
he has the well balanced sound and on
a mid-price release, but the playing
is remarkably imprecise for the LSO.
It is hard to believe
that this surround sound recording by
Rossi is from 1957, when stereo itself
was still an uncertain skill. There
is some genuine ambient information
here and the 5.1 DVD-Audio mix is quite
atmospheric with realistic perspective.
This could be explained if at the original
two channel sessions there was a separate
track for ambience, perhaps including
the offstage trumpet in Kije.
Although there has been just a little
digital ambient enhancement, the natural
sound of the orchestra is still here.
The distortion level is very low, even
by modern standards and the transient
dynamic range is exceptional, with the
cymbals and drums knocking your hat
off, the quiet drum notes and plucked
low strings in Peter coming through
very clean and clear. Karloff’s voice
in Peter was added to the mix
later of course. The orchestra play
very well, the performance is smooth
but unexceptional.
The best sound is naturally
on the DVD-Audio surround tracks. When
inserted into my Sony DVD player the
disk started right up in Dolby surround,
and the sound was very good but showed
restricted frequency and dynamic range
compared to the DVD-Audio tracks. I
was eventually able to switch to the
2.0 stereo with virtual surround, and
much of the frequency and dynamic range
heard on the DVD-Audio tracks was restored.
If one remembers the
scene in Frankenstein where Boris
Karloff as the title character plays
with the little girl, one can see that
he might be especially fond of children.
It must have taken a great gentleness
of spirit for him to be able to put
the child actor at ease while he was
in his fearful make-up. In fact, William
Henry Pratt was a British actor who
moved to the US in 1919, after building
railroads in Canada, and, after a career
in silent films, kept his "public
school" accent through over 100
sound films. His reading of the text
from Peter and the Wolf is a
model of British diction, and he achieves
concern and a quiet sense of doom. In
his career he released a number of recordings
for children and provided one of the
character voices in a Dr. Seuss animated
movie. David Attenborough is also very
British in diction, but considerably
more animated, giving the story some
real urgency and excitement. All in
all, this is probably the most effective
recording of the group, sound (and it
decodes nicely in your surround sound
decoder) and narration.
Bob Keeshan ("Kaptain
Kangaroo") who died at 76 earlier
this year, had hosted a popular US children’s
television show for 30 years, and has
a distinct, nay overwhelming, American
accent, so that may be all there is
to the choice here. What language do
you want your children to grow up speaking?
But the great advantage of the Stokowski
recording is that it also gives you
the option of listening to the music
with no narration at all, which can
be a revelation, and is certainly the
way anyone over twelve years old would
prefer to hear it.
When comparing Peters
we must mention the 1946 Disney animated
version which is quite appealing and
even features a happy ending when the
duck turns out to be alive after all.
This is not quite such an outrage as
you might think; I think Prokofiev intended
that the wolf should spit up the living
duck from his insides at some point,
but Disney probably felt his audience
couldn’t stomach that. And at this time
Walt Disney himself had to personally
approve every frame that the studio
issued. The heavily adapted, hammed-up,
narration in the film is by Sterling
Holloway (1905 - 1992), an American
actor from Georgia who made almost as
many films as Pratt, many of them voice
tracks for Disney cartoons, including
Winnie the Pooh. Although famous
for his lampoon portrayal of rustics,
here he adopts a sort of "Western
Mid-Atlantic" accent and this is
a good version for younger children,
although the wolf is really frightening.
Wolf rescue organisations have no doubt
declared this film to be politically
incorrect, although in this and all
versions, the wolf is only captured
to be taken to the zoo, not killed.
The sound track is monophonic, of course,
and is played by a small ensemble, not
a full symphony orchestra, and there
are a few minor alterations to the score.
This is the only recording to give the
title in the original Russian — Pëtr
i volk — and some effort appears
to have been made to make the costumes
appear authentic.
Paul Shoemaker
Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Mario Rossi 
SILVERLINE 288230-9 [39.39] 