Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67

This delightful collection includes the wonderfully narrated Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf as well as the joyous Mother Goose – three timeless and well-loved pieces of classical music. Fun for both children and adults alike this music will encourage a keen ear, deep imagination and teach fun educational facts along the way. Children will get carried away in the story and have the adventures brought to life by superb narration and the engaging booklet that accompanies the collection. The booklet text is designed to be read either by an older child of 5 or 6 or with an adult for the younger children. The writer is Sarah Breeden noted for the fun and informative programmes she has written for the BBC Children’s Proms.

In 1979, the much-loved British cellist Jacqueline du Pre, then beset with multiple sclerosis (she was diagnosed in 1973), stepped into the recording studio to make what was to be her last recording - not as cellist, but as an engaging narrator in Peter and the Wolf. Her husband Daniel Barenboim conducted a spacious and relaxed account of this timeless story. The coupling was an expanded version of the movements that are frequently heard as Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony - the Cassation in G. Her spirit ever indomitable, du Pre had actually taken part in performances of this work in 1976 at the Royal Albert Hall, playing a toy drum. (Earlier, as a little girl, she performed it with much enthusiasm on a television show, managing to rupture the instrument!).

This timeless recording has never before been released on CD, and in the spirit of musical-storytelling it is released coupled with two other favourites - Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice and Saint-Saens's Danse macabre both recorded some years later by Barenboim.