Musical Exploration of the Sorcerer's Apprentice
Julie Beck
Southern New Hampshire University
MUS-223/ Dr. Bradley Foust
04/13/2022
Musical Exploration
The piece of work I have chosen for this musical exploration is, The Sorcerer 's
Apprentice (L 'apprenti Sorcier) by Paul Dukas. Dukas was a French composer born in Paris on
October 1, 1865. He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire. After graduation he became an
orchestrator and critic (Paul Dukas, 1865). While Paul Dukas wrote a good number of musical
pieces during his lifetime, there were only a few he was satisfied with as he was a harsh critic of
his own work and destroyed the rest. A few of the remaining pieces are his "Symphony" (1896),
bleue". Dukas was inspired by the readings of "Der Zaubrelehrling", a poem written by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe in 1797(Paul Dukas, 1865). 100 years later Dukas began composing The
Sorcerers Apprentice. Paul experimented with a variety of instruments to achieve his own unique
and distinct sound. The Sorcerer 's Apprentice is a programmatic symphonic composition that
includes mysterious melodies, intricate rhythmic patterns, different tempos, dramatic contrasts of
dynamics and pitch and the freedom of form and design (Runyan, 2017). Dukas takes several
details from the original poem by Goethe, and uses them to guide many musical attributes, such
as orchestration, thematic music, and the overall form of the piece. There are assemblances of
sonata form, and themes that parallel the story structure. Dukas creates four main themes in the
introduction to represent the characters of the story. One for the water, one for the broom, one for
the apprentice, and one for the sorcerer (Counts, 2021).
The Apprentice Theme
The Water Theme
The Broom Theme
The Sorcerer Theme
The music follows the narrative of the poem masterfully. The softness of the strings
paints the magical atmosphere that we are in, while the flute, oboe and clarinet create the sound
that will become the unstoppable broom. As the tempo suddenly quickens to represent the
apprentice when he uses the sorcerers spell, with the muted bass becoming the magic spell. There
is a sudden silence, the bassoon begins to play the brooms theme, the music becomes complete
chaos as the broom is flooding the shop with buckets of water. The orchestra gets chaotic, then
becomes quiet until the final outburst that signals the end of the story. The instruments played in
the piece consist of flutes, the piccolo, oboes, soprano clarinets, bass clarinets, counter bassoon.
horns, trombones, trumpets, coronets, timpani glockenspiel, bass drums, cymbals, triangle, harp
and strings that come together to create a beautiful piece of music that does a wonderful job of
telling a story and painting the images in the minds of the audience (About DUKAS's The
Sorcerer's Apprentice, n.d.).