[78-L] the very first "Peter and the Wolf" recording

[victrola78s at aol.com]

This is probably easily searchable, & Prof. Biel may chime in on this as well. As I recall, the first American recording of "Peter and the Wolf" would be the 1939 RCA Victor Red Seal 78 album, with narration by Richard Hale & accompanied by Serge Koussivitsky & the Boston Symphony. I have it on the original 78s(a nice picture cover with Peter & associates, so it may be a later issue). I also have the RCA Camden Lp?reissue of this, but I don't recall what's on the other side. I also have a 1950s Lp with Fiedler & the Boston Pops which I think also has Hale as narrator(a more restrained delivery by him in that one). 

Richard Hale, to put it mildly, really 'hammed up' the narration on this first recording-enjoyable, but his delivery was really over the top & somewhat arch. He fared better around 1946 when he was narrator for "A Christmas Carol" starring Lionel Barrymore in a condensed version of the Dickens tale. This has been reissued at least twice as an MGM Lp(Ihave the later version) & also on CD in about 1995(I have that also).

I have a moderate collection of "Peter and the Wolf" recordings on my record shelf, & some of my favorites (in order of deliciousness) are:

Basil Rathbone
Boris Karloff
Sir Ralph Richardson
Beatrice Lillie
Victor Jory
Jonathon Winters
George Raft

Prof. Biel has quite a compilation of "Peter and the Wolf" recordings-I believe around 200+. This used to be easily searchable in the earlier 78-List format, but now I don't know how to do that.

Dennis "Kettle Drum" Forkel