Leaving Home: Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article will explore some of the ways I conceptualize music as it pertains to the concept of “home,” and specifically here, about leaving home. Using composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music in his well-known beloved composition, Peter and the Wolf, I will illustrate the gradual integration and consolidation of identity in the eponymous character, Peter, as he left his childhood garden home. Thus, the analysis of music itself as a primary source of psychoanalytic data is the distinctive method of analysis that I bring to my interdisciplinary explorations. Prokofiev’s masterpiece Peter and the Wolf pertains to the following overdetermined themes: Music and psychoanalytic concepts hold enduring value as each informs and enriches the other. Music serves as an important entry into affect and unconscious processes. Music and psychoanalytic principles are relevant both inside and beyond the concert hall and consulting room and contribute to a nuanced understanding of our inner lives.