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PAUL DUKAS
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)

Sometimes a composer’s fame first comes, and then remains, connected with a single piece of music. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the brilliant orchestral scherzo by the French composer Paul Dukas, is one such defining work. Long before Mickey Mouse ran into trouble with flying broomsticks and out-of-control waterworks in Walt Disney’s Fantasia, this engaging composition, written in 1897, had already won a firm place in the orchestral repertory.

But Dukas did much more as a composer, critic, and prominent teacher. Because he came relatively late to composition and was intensely self-critical, destroying many of his works, he did not leave a large number of major pieces. His Symphony in C (1895–96) sometimes appears on concerts today, and a remarkable opera, Ariadne and Bluebeard (1899–1907), deserves greater recognition, as does his final large-scale work, the ballet La Péri (1911).

Dukas was often inspired by vivid, mythic tales. The one for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice dates back centuries in various guises, most notably from the second-century Latin writer Lucian. Dukas’s official title reveals that he had a more recent source in mind: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Symphonic Scherzo after a Ballad of Goethe. The sorcerer leaves his apprentice to clean and the lazy lad thinks he can try some of his master’s magic to make the work easier, so conjures a broomstick to help. But things quickly get out of control, water floods the place, and he cannot reverse the spell. In desperation he takes an axe to destroy the broom, but once cut in half, both parts continue the confusion. Further havoc ensues until the sorcerer returns and invokes the correct incantation. Dukas follows Goethe’s 14-stanza ballad Der Zauberlehrling (1796) quite closely; he includes a French translation in the published score and in the manuscript identifies exactly the three principal themes by name.

The meticulous Dukas composed the work with unusual speed in 1897 and it premiered in Paris that May. Its immediate success made it a concert favorite long before becoming the impetus for Fantasia 40 years later. Walt Disney was a great fan of conductor Leopold Stokowski and hoped they might do a project together. Beginning in 1929 Disney made dozens of “Silly Symphonies” and was interested in a large-scale film project that would take off from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. A chance meeting with Stokowski at a California restaurant in 1937 set the project in motion. Dukas’s piece was the first part of the film to be made, with Stokowski conducting a studio orchestra, so while everything else in Fantasia features The Philadelphia Orchestra, this was the one section that did not.

The brilliantly orchestrated scherzo makes marvelous use of the glockenspiel and includes many thrilling effects. A mysterious slow opening represents the sorcerer’s incantation, which alternates with quick woodwinds introducing the apprentice. After a thud from the timpani as the sorcerer exits, and a brief silence, the broom hesitantly begins to move with mounting grunts from low-pitched instruments that become the accompaniment to the main theme in the bassoons, soon taken up by the full orchestra. The incantation theme, now much faster, and brass fanfares join in as well. A short silence precedes the apprentice splitting the broom in half and things get ever more out of control until, near the end, the sorcerer’s mysterious opening music returns as he reappears to restore order with a final magical flourish.

—Christopher H. Gibbs

PAUL DUKAS
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)

Sometimes a composer’s fame first comes, and then remains, connected with a single piece of music. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the brilliant orchestral scherzo by the French composer Paul Dukas, is one such defining work. Long before Mickey Mouse ran into trouble with flying broomsticks and out-of-control waterworks in Walt Disney’s Fantasia, this engaging composition, written in 1897, had already won a firm place in the orchestral repertory.

But Dukas did much more as a composer, critic, and prominent teacher. Because he came relatively late to composition and was intensely self-critical, destroying many of his works, he did not leave a large number of major pieces. His Symphony in C (1895–96) sometimes appears on concerts today, and a remarkable opera, Ariadne and Bluebeard (1899–1907), deserves greater recognition, as does his final large-scale work, the ballet La Péri (1911).

Dukas was often inspired by vivid, mythic tales. The one for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice dates back centuries in various guises, most notably from the second-century Latin writer Lucian. Dukas’s official title reveals that he had a more recent source in mind: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Symphonic Scherzo after a Ballad of Goethe. The sorcerer leaves his apprentice to clean and the lazy lad thinks he can try some of his master’s magic to make the work easier, so conjures a broomstick to help. But things quickly get out of control, water floods the place, and he cannot reverse the spell. In desperation he takes an axe to destroy the broom, but once cut in half, both parts continue the confusion. Further havoc ensues until the sorcerer returns and invokes the correct incantation. Dukas follows Goethe’s 14-stanza ballad Der Zauberlehrling (1796) quite closely; he includes a French translation in the published score and in the manuscript identifies exactly the three principal themes by name.

The meticulous Dukas composed the work with unusual speed in 1897 and it premiered in Paris that May. Its immediate success made it a concert favorite long before becoming the impetus for Fantasia 40 years later. Walt Disney was a great fan of conductor Leopold Stokowski and hoped they might do a project together. Beginning in 1929 Disney made dozens of “Silly Symphonies” and was interested in a large-scale film project that would take off from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. A chance meeting with Stokowski at a California restaurant in 1937 set the project in motion. Dukas’s piece was the first part of the film to be made, with Stokowski conducting a studio orchestra, so while everything else in Fantasia features The Philadelphia Orchestra, this was the one section that did not.

The brilliantly orchestrated scherzo makes marvelous use of the glockenspiel and includes many thrilling effects. A mysterious slow opening represents the sorcerer’s incantation, which alternates with quick woodwinds introducing the apprentice. After a thud from the timpani as the sorcerer exits, and a brief silence, the broom hesitantly begins to move with mounting grunts from low-pitched instruments that become the accompaniment to the main theme in the bassoons, soon taken up by the full orchestra. The incantation theme, now much faster, and brass fanfares join in as well. A short silence precedes the apprentice splitting the broom in half and things get ever more out of control until, near the end, the sorcerer’s mysterious opening music returns as he reappears to restore order with a final magical flourish.

—Christopher H. Gibbs