L'Apprenti Sorcier

The piece opens with a hushed, mysterious introduction, shimmering strings and woodwinds that suggest an old sorcerer's dusty workshop and hint at the tune to come. A bassoon then creeps in with a lumbering, comic melody, this is the broom, brought to life by the apprentice's stolen spell to fetch water. At first the music trudges back and forth patiently as the broom carries pail after pail. Little by little the orchestra thickens and speeds up: strings swirl, brass punch through, and the water theme grows more insistent, mirroring the flood rising in the room. Listen for the moment the apprentice realizes he does not know how to stop the spell, the music becomes agitated and disjointed, with stabbing chords and rushing scales depicting his panic as he grabs an axe and splits the broom in two. Instead of stopping, the theme doubles, now carried by two brooms working twice as fast, and the orchestra reaches its loudest, most chaotic point, brass blaring, percussion crashing, strings churning. Just when the flood seems unstoppable, the old sorcerer returns. A few decisive, magical chords cut through the chaos, the water stops, and the frantic music halts. The piece closes with a quiet, almost sheepish echo of the opening, followed by a few sharp final chords, as if the sorcerer is scolding his apprentice one last time.

Dukas composed this orchestral scherzo in 1897, drawing on Goethe's 1797 ballad "Der Zauberlehrling," about an apprentice who enchants a broom to do his chores and cannot control it once the flood begins. It premiered in Paris in 1897 under the composer's own direction and was an immediate success, quickly becoming Dukas's most performed work. Its vivid storytelling made it a natural fit for animation, and it reached a vast new audience in 1940 when Walt Disney paired it with Mickey Mouse in the film Fantasia, cementing its place as one of the most recognizable pieces of orchestral music. Dukas himself was famously self-critical and destroyed many of his own scores, but this one endured as his enduring calling card.