This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Saturday 22 December 2012

Saturday Rave: Peter and the Wolf.

Anyone can make up a story. It's the easiest thing in the world.

I mean, just think how many people in the world have written a really brilliant story.

Er...

...er...

...oh.

That's hardly anyone, isn't it.

So...could there possibly be something wrong with my reasoning somewhere?

Anyway, Peter and the Wolf. This is a story written by a celebrity, the very famous composer Sergei Prokofiev: and, as we know, stories written by celebrities are nearly always extremely profitable disasters.

Sergei Prokofiev wrote the story (and the music that went with it) in just a couple of weeks. He'd just returned home to the Soviet Union after many years away, and the mixture of memories of his childhood and a request from a Moscow children's theatre inspired a story about a house in the forest and a very naughty boy.

Peter and the Wolf is designed to introduce various musical instruments as well as tell a story. I'm particularly fond of the bassoon that plays the part of the Grandfather because, obviously, all music is more fun if it has a bassoon in it.

I have mixed feelings about Peter and the Wolf. Peter's tune is really rather annoyingly cheerful, and the duck's fate* still worries me even now. 

I'm glad that the brave, foolish, disobedient boy hero wins the day, though.

Hurray!

Word To Use Today: wolf. This word comes from the Old English wulf, and long before that from the Latin word lupus.

Wolf should mean dog, really, shouldn't it, because that's what they say: wolf wolf!

*An even worse fate than just being wolfed down.






1 comment:

  1. That tune is a big EAR WORM. Once you start thinking about it, it's there in your head forever...oh, no! That's the morning gone...must sing something else quickly!

    ReplyDelete

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