Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf is a composition by Sergei Prokofiev written after his return to Russia in 1933. Stalin had ordered that art had to be reflective of the Communist ideal and that music had to be simple and understandable. Prokofiev, a child prodigy and enfant terrible, probably wrote this piece with tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless it has been a great success with not only children everywhere, but also with adults. It is a piece where different instruments in the orchestra represent the different personages in the fairy tale and in this way emphasize the narrator.

Allan Sherman parodied the work in a 1964 album called Peter and the Commissar, made with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra.