Peter und der Prog-Wolf remastered!
Jack Lancaster & Robin Lumley – Peter and the Wolf (1975, Remastered January 1, 2022)
Esoteric’s reissue, remastered by Paschal Byrne.
Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote Peter and the Wolf in 1936 as “a symphonic fairy tale for children.” As conceived, the narrator tells a story for children in which every character is musically “played” by a different instrument, i.e., the bird is a flute, the duck is an oboe, the cat is a clarinet, the grandfather is a bassoon, the Wolf is French horns, the hunters are woodwinds and trumpets, and Peter is string instruments. Prokofiev’s composition earned the attention of Walt Disney who famously turned it into a 15-minute animated short film in 1946 starring Sterling Holloway (the future voice of Winnie the Pooh) as the narrator, with music provided by the orchestra of Kurt Graunke. Countless other famous persons and
conductors have taken a turn at Peter and the Wolf, among them Basil Rathbone and Leopold Stokowski; Arthur Godfrey and Andre Kostelanetz; Cyril Ritchard and Eugene Ormandy; Leonard Bernstein and, well, Leonard Bernstein; Carol Channing and Erich Kunzel; Patrick Stewart and Kent Nagano; Sting and Claudio Abbado, and perhaps most famously, David Bowie and Ormandy. U.S. Presidents (Bill Clinton) and First Ladies (Eleanor Roosevelt) have even narrated recordings. Though Sting, David Bowie, and another narrator, Alice Cooper, are all bona fide rock stars, their renditions were traditional.
So, what about a progressive rock Peter and the Wolf? Such a release arrived in 1975 from Jack Lancaster (Blodwyn Pig) and Robin Lumley (Brand X). Now, that unusual interpretation has been remastered and reissued by Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings arm. Lancaster (as The Grandfather, primarily playing the electronic wind instrument known as the lyricon) and Lumley (on keyboards) were joined by an impressive array of friends including Manfred Mann as Peter, Gary Brooker as The Bird, Brian Eno as The Wolf, Chris Spedding and Gary Moore as The Duck, and (bringing a true touch of elegance) French-Italian jazz virtuoso violinist Stephane Grappelli as The Cat. As the Narrator, Lancaster and Lumley cast Viv Stanshall of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (and also the Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield’s prog classic Tubular Bells). Support was provided by more illustrious musicians including Cozy Powell, Phil Collins, and Alvin Lee. As co-producer with Lancaster and Lumley, Dennis Mackay helped put it all together.
A full performance of the Prokofiev original lasts around 25 minutes; Disney’s version truncated the work to about 15. Lancaster and Lumley, however, were looking to expand the original, and so their Peter and the Wolf runs nearly 40 minutes long. To fill it out, they penned a number of their own instrumentals, interweaving them with rock arrangements of the Prokofiev melodies. Surely the composer (who died in 1953) didn’t imagine Peter’s instantly recognizable theme being played, country-style, by a band including steel guitar, spacey synthesizer, saxophone, synthesized strings, and a bass-guitar-drums rhythm section!
The prog Peter and the Wolf whimsically touched on various musical idioms throughout, including searing electric rock, blues, country, and jazz, within its classical-inspired framework. While not for purists, it was successful enough to spin off overdubbed albums in the French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages. (Only the original English version is included in this reissue.)
