Peter and the Wolf by Serge Prokofiev
- Submitting institution
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Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2887156
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- January
- Year
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- What happens when we discard most of the outward trappings of a well-loved piece and bring the texts through a series of radical translations? That's the question that my version of Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' sets out to explore. Starting with Prokofiev's original music and narration, I worked with the former Scots Makar (poet laureate) Liz Lochhead to commission a radical Scots adaptation of the narration. With the publisher's permission, I used this as the basis of a comprehensive reimagining of the score for jazz orchestra – not an arrangement, but a new working out, in a jazz idiom, of Prokofiev's structure, melodic and harmonic ideas.
On one level, it's an entertaining piece for children, introducing them to the instrumentation of a big band in the same way that Prokofiev's original introduced the classical orchestra. At the same time, it's a creative investigation into the essential qualities of a musico-dramatic work: though this version is utterly different, it remains, nonetheless, Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf'.
It was extensively reviewed (Scotsman, Herald, Jazzviews, London Jazz New Review, etc.) and the BBC Music Magazine said: "[W]ould fill a much-needed void at the best of times, but the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra goes even further by ticking none of the obvious boxes ... It's barely a jazz album at all … the updated and adapted text by Liz Lochhead's in a Scots vernacular [is] so full-on as to potentially baffle those unfamiliar … how can a version that doubles the length of the original still offer so little leeway for either Prokofiev's music or Tommy Smith's treatment of it? The fact is, however, that this project that arguably fails at so many levels still manages to be the most joyously engaging of listening experiences, thus ultimately succeeding completely … Unreservedly recommended".
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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