[78-L] Peter and the wolf

[DAVID BURNHAM]

My first recording of Peter and the Wolf was a single 10 inch Allegro 78 read by Crane Calder which I got when I was about 4 years old.  This is a record I assumed nobody would ever have heard of today by a reader nobody would know, however I just checked on google and discovered there are many sites on Crane Calder and that the 78 is going for $22.95 at Amazon.com.

Anyway, this version can't be much longer than 5 minutes and is about as condensed as possible.  To start off with, all references to the different instruments representing the characters is dispensed with, (just as well since there is only a piano accompanying this version).  At the end, there is the usual line about listening very carefully to hear the duck quacking in the wolf's stomach.  I had my head stuck as close to the horn as possible trying to hear a duck - I couldn't hear any @#$% duck!  Since he hadn't introduced the tunes at the beginning, there was no reason to think he was referring to the duck's tune.  I can remember being in a record store with my father at the age of 5, (my dad died when I turned 6 so I'm quite sure about how old I was), and he asked me if I wanted the Richard Hale version of Peter and the Wolf.  Since I wasn't too crazy about the version I had, I declined his offer, to my subsequent regret.  Now it is one of my
 favourite pieces, although I don't have 200 versions of it, and last year, recorded it for a CD which was nominated for a Juno, (Windsor Symphony conducted by John Morris Russell with Colm Feore reading) and, hopefully without prejudice, believe it to be one of the most spectacular recordings of it on the market.