Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
Duration: 12 min
A broom springs to life, the water rises: Dukas turns the apprentice’s mishap into an orchestral tale as precise as it is dizzying.
In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Dukas follows Goethe’s ballad: alone, a pupil brings a broom to life to fill a basin. The spell works too well. Without words, the orchestra tells of a chore that spirals into disaster.
Start with the bassoon, which sets out the broom’s steady gait. As the motif returns, the water seems to gain ground; the woodwinds, brass and percussion thicken the story. Above all, listen for the shifts in momentum: they lead to the master’s return and the final calm.
Long before Mickey in Fantasia (1940), the apprentice and his broom lived in a ballad by Goethe published in 1797. Dukas drew his music from it a century later; Disney would then inherit this tale.
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