This version of Peter and the Wolf, like most these days, has a different narrator superimposed, depending on the country of issue. In the United States, I understand, an Englishman has been called in, Dudley Moore, where for the UK Philips has conscripted Britain's favourite Irishman. I had expected Terry Wogan to sound arch, as most narrators do, but I count him the most naturally and unselfconsciously avuncular of all on current records. Happily the old narrative with its stilted phrases is completely rejigged, though I am glad that the cat still has ''velvet paws''. So with Wogan a sentence like ''Children like him are not afraid of wolves'' is said in the most natural way without a nod or a wink, and the animal voices are characterized well with only the duck at all exaggerated. The colloquial style brings such eliptical sentences as ''No sooner had Peter gone: guess what came out of the forest?'' though that moment crowns the whole performance, for the Boston Pops Orchestra—or rather horns and percussion—play the wolf music with superb, sinister flair, and one can imagine children shrieking with delighted terror. That strikes me as very different from Leonard Bernstein's quiz-question technique in his old New York/CBS version and far more acceptable (60152, 7/62). It is also refreshing to have Wogan after the aggressive American-oriented style of Perlman on the HMV issue (see above).
As conductor John Williams is clearly effective, with the Boston Pops ensemble far outshining that of the Israel orchestra. Though the Philips recording makes no pretence of reconciling the narrator's acoustic and that of the orchestra, the actual recording is exceptionally vivid and realistic with excellent separation and definition against a warm background. That helps too in the performance of The Nutcracker suite, which comes as a good coupling whether for children or adults, apt if different from usual. Williams is far more delicate than I had expected from some previous, brash Boston Pops recordings, and rhythms are well sprung. Even so, his reluctance to allow fluctuations of tempo occasionally brings a feeling of stiffness, even metricality, as in the Flower waltz, where he seems determined not to allow natural stringendo. If charm is at a premium, it is still a refreshing version, well-played and superbly recorded.'