PORT TOWNSEND — Terry Reitz, organist at Trinity United Methodist Church, will present the classic musical tale “Peter and the Wolf” to introduce young musicians to the magnitude of the church’s Baroque pipe organ Sunday.
The free half-hour performance will be at 4 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church, 609 Taylor St. at Clay Street, in uptown Port Townsend.
Donations will be accepted.
The composition was born in 1936, when Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev was commissioned to produce a short piece for the Central Children’s Theater in Moscow.
It took Prokofiev three days to complete the music and narration for the 25-minute work, whose purpose was to introduce young children to the instruments of the orchestra.
Designed for children, the folk tale will be acted out Sunday by masked players — Peter, the duck, the bird, the cat and the wolf — with two narrators telling the story.
Reitz said it took her three months to transcribe the orchestral score for the organ, which provides the music and the “dialogue” for the characters, from the flute-like pipings of the bird to the deep rumblings of the wolf.
Artist Ray Grier made the players’ masks and also portrays the cat.
Harvey Crow is Peter, Alice Fox is the bird, Mary Jo Nichols plays the duck, Fred Johnson is the grandfather, Dan Purnell is the wolf, and Stan Goddard is the hunter.
Goddard, a retired engineer, built Trinity a tracker pipe organ, designed to play 19th-century church music.
Reed pipes
He decided to build a second pipe organ with reed pipes, the biggest of which are referred to as grumblers, to produce the sound that Bach and other Baroque composers prized.
“It certainly makes a good wolf,” Goddard said.
“Peter and the Wolf” starts with Peter’s theme, capturing the carefree spirit of a boy released from chores and venturing out beyond his usual boundaries — the gate into the meadow.
There, he meets a bird, a duck and a cat but is brought back by Grandfather, who warns Peter about the wolf.
When Peter disobeys and returns to the meadow, he encounters the wolf.
Perhaps most familiar to baby boomers is the animated version that Disney produced in 1946.
Narrated by Sterling Holloway, it added names for the bird (Sasha), the duck (Sonia) and the cat (Ivan) and a happier ending for the duck.
The church’s version also gives the duck a second lease on life.
Scholarship fund
Donations accepted at the concert will establish a scholarship fund for young musicians interested in playing keyboard instruments.
“Hopefully, we can grow some new keyboardists,” Reitz said.
“After this concert, anyone can come up and step on some pedals or pull out some stops.”
Reitz said “Peter and the Wolf” was a natural for the first of a series of concerts for children featuring music based on folk tales — “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel” — or that have themes that appeal to children, like “Carnival of the Animals.”
And the wolf, which is paraded off to the zoo at the end of Prokofiev’s tale, may return.
“I really think we should do ‘The Three Little Pigs,’” Reitz said.
Music lovers of all ages are welcome at Sunday’s presentation of “Peter and the Wolf.”
For more information, phone Trinity UMC at 360-385-0484.
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Jennifer Jackson is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. To contact her, email jjackson@olypen.com.
