Parisian Paul Dukas (1865 - 1935) possessed great talent and was deemed a bright prospect, but he wrote sparingly. He was interested in music at a young age, but Dukas' family was too poor to afford lessons. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1882, where his musical appetite could be satisfied. After serving in the Army, he found an early musical career as a critic and orchestrator. His fame was established with the orchestral scherzo The Sorcerer's Apprentice and, later, his opera La Péri. He wrote a few other large compositions in the last years of his life, but his critical sense led him to destroy them because he felt they did not meet the standard set by his earlier works.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The basis of this scherzo was a ballad by Goethe, based on a tale by the Greek poet Lucian (120- 180 AD). This timeless story depicts a young magician's apprentice who tries to lighten his workload by experimenting with magic spells he has seen his master use. When the boy is alone, he commands a broom to go to the well to fetch water for the house. The broom obliges all too well and the apprentice finds that he does not know how to command the broom to stop, when the basin begins to overflow, soon filling the room with water. In desperation, the boy uses an axe to stop the broom's progress, but instead he creates two slaves bent on fulfilling the task. Near to drowning, the apprentice calls for help. The sorcerer arrives and takes command of the scene with a few magic words; both parts of the broom fly back into the corner, the waters  recede, and peace returns to the scene. Premiered in Paris in 1897, the work became a favorite of audiences. Walt Disney's casting of Mickey Mouse in the role of the apprentice in the film Fantasia gained an even wider audience for this moral lesson.

Copyright © 1999 & 2000   Roy Stehle, Palo Alto, CA, USA. All rights reserved.