[78-L] A Peter & The Wolf discussion and NO posts from Mike Biel? Hope he's well

[Michael Biel]

Steve Ramm wrote:
> > I'm afraid I didn't real all the posts but noted that there were NO replies from Mike
> > "Call mE Mr. Peter & The Wolf" Biel.
> > Assume he's in transit somewhere ;-) Hope he's okay?

> He was just here yesterday.  dl


Yes, yes, yes.  I'm here.  Mike Biel reporting for duty.  I WAS in
transit, driving down to Birmingham in the midst of a monsoon.  TODAY
its nice and sunny.  I was supposed to have beat the rain by leaving
Monday.  I shudda stayed home and gone to the birthday party of one of
my former students, gotten my new glasses that arrived at the store this
morning, and driven down today.  Drat.


> > There is NO PATW discussion that Mike can't resolve.
> > Steve (not a big fan of PATW) Ramm <vbg>

OK.  Let's see where we are.  The wolf has eaten the duck (or, as I
mentioned a few weeks ago, in the Soviet cartoon version the wolf has
eaten the cat), Peter is stuck up in the tree, but has a rope. 

> At one time I had the famous Peanuts strip on the wall
> ("I hope the wolf eats him").  dl

I MUST find that cartoon.  Anyway, let's see where we are now.  Peter
has this rope, and most of the Russians are hoping that Stalin will walk
by.  Perhaps a Soviet version of Strange Fruit could result.  By the
way, do you realize that in Prokofiev's Russian language narration he
calls the hero "Pioneer Peter"?  Petya was a loyal member of the "Young
Pioneers" and should be pictured wearing the red tie.  

I agree that Richard Hale is a weird choice of narrator, and if some did
not get David's reference to the Ides of March, Hale was the blind
soothsayer in the Marlon Brando film of "Big Julie Gets It In The
Rotunda".  The Sherrif of Baker St. was not much of a better choice for
Stoki's recording, and I suppose he thought better of it when using
Captain Clarabelle for the Vanguard LP.  Actually, the best choice of
the three early complete recordings on 78s was the second one, Frank
Luther on Decca, although that is the rarest of the three.  When I
worked on finding the recording dates I was surprised to see a gap of a
year from Hale to Luther, then another year before Rathbone.  Of course
the real surprise was to find that no Russian recording was made till 47
or 48 and that there have only been three more ever since then.  

The Crane Calder on Allegro was not very common.  I had never heard of
it or him until a friend of mine issued a pirate CD of it, and I had to
have him check the original 78 to give me the info.  I've since gotten a
copy of it, fortunately not for the price mentioned a couple of days
ago.  On 78s in addition to Lady Eleanor, you might want to look for
Milton Cross on Musicraft because it uses Prokofiev's original piano
reduction of the score.  It also takes the unusual path of doing it on
four 10-inchers.

Sterling Halloway did record it several times as David indicated.  There
are four or five configurations of it on RCA Victor 78s and a completely
different recording on Disneyland LP.  I haven't done an A-B check yet,
but I think that recording is also different from the movie soundtrack. 
So that makes three.  

When I get home I need to check with dl to see if I have the Swedish and
Spanish ones he mentions.  I've got it in Korean, two different Chinese
dialects, a bunch in Hebrew.  No Arabic or African languages yet.  Or
Native American either.  Wouldn't it be impressive to have it done in
Navahoe?  None have been done in any language of the old Soviet Union
other than the four in Russian.  

Were there any other questions yet that I didn't answer?

Mike  mbiel at mbiel.com