Peter and the Wolf

Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf may well be the best way to introduce children to music—fabulous tunes, vivid characterization, and a plot that includes a duck quacking from inside a wolf’s stomach. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Petrenko breathes life into the story with its usual virtuosic panache. The narrator, though, is as important as the music, and Alexander Armstrong brings a welcome dry humor to it all. Ogden Nash’s witty poems serve as joyful preludes to a rollicking performance of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals.