Magical Notes: 'Opus Number Zoo' and 'Peter and the wolf'

Sooner or later, every composer ends up trying his hand at children's music. The little ones, whether performers or spectators, have inspired a great deal of repertoire that, far from merely fulfilling a didactic purpose, has become the heritage of concert halls and the most acclaimed performers.

This is the case of two works for young people and children, Opus Number Zoo and Pierino e il Lupo, which will be performed in a concert in support of AIDO activities in collaboration with the Le Altre Note association.

Opus Number Zoo

For wind quintet, is a short work written in 1951 for a young audience and revised in 1970. The four pieces that compose it each correspond to a text read by the musicians, either separately or together, or by an actor. The four poems, which tell the story of animals, are by Rhoda Levine.

Although the four short poems do not have a well-defined plot, they present typically fable-like situations, with obvious references to Aesop and a hint of moralism, for example in the not at all disinterested cunning of the fox who whirls a naive chick, or in the disenchantment of the old mouse who attends a party and reflects on the passing of time, or again in the furious fight between two cats who both end up with a limp. A hint of melancholic tragicness instead invests a horse that, alone in the middle of a field, listens to the sounds of a distant battle and reflects on human folly.

Peter and the Wolf

Prokofiev's famous fairy tale with the Spiritum Wind quintet and narrator. Peter and the Wolf, whose text is by Prokofiev himself, is a real fairy tale, the kind that fascinates every child and is remembered forever, even when you become an adult. Each character in this fairy tale is represented by a musical theme and an instrument of the ensemble, according to the most natural combinations: the chirping bird is characterised by the flute, the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the grumpy grandfather by the bassoon, the frightening wolf by the horn, the protagonist Pierino by all the instruments.

The reciting voice narrates the fable and at the same time the music comments on it, with an abundance of sound images that are often more vivid and precise than any words, such as the cat's rapid climb or the feeble and tragicomic (‘painful’ says the score) wail of the duck in the wolf's belly. The fairy tale ends with a triumphant little procession of Peter and his friends, which allows Prokofiev to reintroduce all the main themes of this enchanting composition quickly.

The performance features actor Edoardo Pisati and the Spiritum Wind Quintet, composed of Lorenzo Fazzini on flute, Giacomo Riva on oboe, Giacomo Alfano on clarinet, Riccardo Nanni on horn and Vincenzo Riccio on bassoon.

• Free entrance
• Italian language