I grew up watching the movie Fantasia (and its sequel, Fantasia 2000). I love everything about that movie (except the Rites of Spring, sorry). The centaurs, the dancing mushrooms, a magical misfit, a dark Halloween night. Love! The first thing I thought when considering how classical music shapes our world today was a certain mouse who made his first appearance in Fantasia, and whose presence is still felt today. Here’s the story behind that piece:
What do you get when you mix an 18th-century drama king with a late 19th-century perfectionist and a 20th-century visionary?
A mouse.
The genesis of this mouse starts clear back in 1797 when this crazy popular writer, dramatist, and artist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote a poem in 14 stanzas called ”Der Zauberlehrling”, which translates into “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
At the beginning of Goethe’s career, he wrote in the “Sturm und Drang” literary movement which, amongst other things, loved extreme emotion (You could call these writers the “emo” teens of the literary world). Consider these lines from the poem: “You, hell’s miscreate abortion/Is this house doomed to perdition?/Sign I see in every portion/Of impending demolition.” Our hero is practically wailing, “Is this house doomed to Hell? We’re going to be destroyed! Stop!” You can see him wallowing in despair. Luckily for Goethe, everyone back then loved his drama king tendencies. He was wildly popular (and a little [lot!] naughty, but I digress).
Moving forward 100 years. Literally.
The second player in the creation of the life of our mouse is Paul Dukas, our 19th-century perfectionist.
Paul Dukas was a classical composer in the late 1800s. He composed at least 38 pieces of music. (By way of comparison, Goethe left behind 10,000 drawings, alone!)
And destroyed a bunch of them because they weren’t perfect enough.
He ended up only allowing 14 of his 38 works to be published. His most famous work is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, a symphonic poem based on Goethe’s poem. (I know, lots of poems. A Symphonic poem is basically a piece of music that is written for a lot of instruments that tells a story.)
The reason I wonder if Holst ever heard “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is because he employed a very similar technique in “Uranus: the Magician.” Holst and Dukas seem to have the same attitude about bassoons. Bassoons at the time were considered the “clowns” of the orchestra. In both “Uranus” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, the magic is introduced by the “clowns”, the bassoons. The melodies both happen in a 1, 2, 3, skippity-skip-a-skip-a-skippity-skip-a pattern. If you turn your speakers up and listen closely at time stamps :16 and 2:30 in this video you will hear bassoon licks that sound similar so Dukas!
“Uranus, The Magician” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” also have similar structures. Each piece starts quietly, builds to a large, flamboyant climax, and then calms back down. Even at the end of Uranus, it's almost as if you can see...well...a mouse slinking away.
Dukas grew to hate “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. It was too popular. He felt it overshadowed his other works, and he was correct. To this day it is his only consistently performed work. (Sounds a bit like Holst and The Planets, don’t you think?) He died in 1935, too early to see his music brought to life on the silver screen. I’m guessing that if he is alive somewhere, he’s probably happy that he missed that event because what was already an immensely popular piece was about to become a “transcendent blessing” that would not only give his song immortality, it would permanently relegate his other works to near oblivion. It also created an icon recognizable the world over.
Enter Walter Elias Disney, a self-made man who loved animation and was always trying to push boundaries; our 20th-century visionary.
From Steamboat Willie on, Walt Disney was testing the boundaries of animation. But Walt’s beloved Mickey was waning in popularity. The Disney studios needed something to boost the Mouse back into stardom. And so, as they were finishing a “silly symphony” called “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, they developed the idea for a "concert feature" and the movie Fantasia was born. Fantasia was created, in part, to give people who did not like classical music a new way to enjoy the medium. And enjoy it they did. According to filmsite.org, Fantasia ranks number 24 in the top 100 grossing movies worldwide after adjustment for inflation.
And the red-robed mouse is a major reason for that popularity. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is the most popular segment from the original Fantasia. Mickey’s star rose immediately. The show has been riffed in everything from movies to books The segment was the only part of the original that was carried over to Fantasia 2000. The curious, red-robed mouse with his blue hat covered in stars is beloved the world over.
Watch the clip here.
So why does this all matter?
We live in a world where Classical music is proclaimed remote, inaccessible, and not relevant to current society. But that’s really not the case. Classical music is everywhere in the world that you and I live in. Take this mouse. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” Mickey is the second most iconic Mickey look. He stars in the show Fantasmic that runs in Disneyland today. He is used in television shows and video games. Around the world, Mickey has become a symbol of imagination and creativity.
A 19th-century perfectionist wrote an amazing piece of music based on an 18th-century drama king’s poem. A 20th-century visionary took that song and gave it a face. And now, here, in the 21st century, because of those men and that piece of classical music, we have an icon.
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