15th March 2019
Peter and the wolf, prokofiev
Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, now in Ukraine, on the 27th April in 1891. His mother was a great pianist, and his first teacher. He, as well as Mozart, was a child prodigy; he started composing at the age of 5 and when he was 9 he wrote his first opera, named "the giant”. When he was 13, he got to enter to the Saint Petersburg conservatory, studying with Rimsky-Korsakov and winning the award to the best student when he graduated.
The music composed by Prokofiev was new and different for that period. He used strange harmonies, dynamic rhythms and lots of humor. All those successes made him able to travel through all the world, to live in Paris and London for a while, and make a tour in the USA 5 times. Finally, in his last 19 years of his life, he lived in Russia, and it was at that period when he composed Peter and the Wolf.
Let's talk about music...
Prokofiev composed Peter and the Wolf for a theatre of children from Moscow.
He himself invented the tale and wrote it, from memories that he had of when he was
a child. His objective was to introduce the orchestra instruments to the children of the
theatre, and for that he wrote a theme for each character, using specific instruments.
The children really liked the play and it was a worldwide success. He even made a cartoon
version in collaboration with Walt Disney, that you can watch clicking on the following
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va8Uz6MoKLg
Prokofiev, in Peter and the Wolf, used a special composition technique called “leitmotiv”. A leitmotiv is a melody that we match to a character in a story. That way, in Peter and the Wolf, each character has a leitmotiv that we can hear every time that they appear. Those melodies also describe the characters: Peter's melody is light and happy; and the Wolf's is dark and scary, for example.
Interesting data
Prokofiev uses the timbres (types of sound) of the instruments to have a better description of the characters.
Activities
Let's meet the characters! Print the following pages, watch the Disney movie from the minute 3:20 and match:
Activity 3: After watching the Disney movie, listen to the following audios and say to which character do they belong: Peter - wolf - bird - duck - cat - hunters - grandpa
Activitat 4: Read the article carefully and say if the following sentences about Prokofiev's life are true or false:
1. Prokofiev was born in Ukraine 4 centuries ago.
2. He was a child prodigy and he wrote his first opera when he was nine.
3. Peter and the wolf was written for a children theatre in Moscow.
4. The composition technique that he uses in Peter and the wolf is called leitmelody.
Extra: If you like coloring, I leave to you this picture of Peter with his bird friend. You can download it clicking here. In the file there's a blank space where you can draw other characters from the story or your favourite musical instruments.
You can send me the answers of the activities filling in the box below, or take photos of the activity pages and upload them to dropbox here.