So perennial are the texts and music for Peter and the Wolf and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, that many a celebrity has recorded it. Both works have drawn some of the most famous actors, including Meryl Streep and here, a young Sean Connery (in 1966). It was vividly recorded for Decca’s Phase 4 series, as was, in 1973, Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé. The lieutenant in question is a creation of bureaucracy, a non-existent character fleshed out with a life to satisfy the curiosity of the Tsar, who has misheard a phrase (in Russian, “the lieutenants, however”) as the lieutenant’s name. The suite follows the soldier’s life story from birth, through first love and marriage, and the famous sleigh-ride in the Troika, before finally being put to rest in a fictitious death and burial.
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