5-2 Final Proiect Milestone Three: Academic Analvsis
Alesha Posey 6-5-2022
5-2 Final Project Milestone Three: Academic Analysis
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was completed in 1897 by a French composer Paul Dukas. Paul
Dukas was known for destroying his music pieces because he was not satisfied with them. Only
a few of his compositions remain. He studied at the Paris Conservatory where he became friends
with fellow composer Claude Debussy. Dukas work is part of the romantic genre. His first
performance of the sorcerer's apprentice was in 1897, at Societe Nationale de Musique, Paris.
Romantic composers had a different way of expressing themselves. There were different mood
changes and tone of the sound for their pieces. During this period, you could also tell there was a
fascination with magic and fantasy. They also had program music. Dukas displayed an
extraordinary command of the large late-Romantic orchestra, and a strong gift for evoking a
fanciful atmosphere. These are talents that he shared with Russian composers of the same period
such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The quirky theme for the magic broom is particularly
striking, especially when the bassoons introduce it.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice turned out to be one of Dukas best-known pieces. This piece was
based on a poem by the same name by 18th century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The poem had the same similarities featured in Fantasia. It told a story of a wizard who is left to
look after his master's shop. Thanks to the movie Fantasia this helped everyone get to know
Dukas work. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was used to tell the story of an apprentice and sorcerer.
Dukas created a piece that was easy to follow and understand. Dukas followed the poem closely
and started the piece off with the sorcerer leaving the workshop. Airy, mysterious chords in the
5-2 Final Proiect Milestone Three: Academic Analvsis
muted strings and flutes pull back the curtain on the symphonic scene, introducing our
protagonist: a single melody of intertwined clarinet, oboe, and flute, carefully limned with glassy
harmonics from the harp. Whether we hear this melody as the apprentice, the broom he enchants
to carry his water pails, or the magic itself, it appears in many guises throughout this
monothematic work. A single crack from the timpani (a bolt of magic?) heralds the theme's first
reincarnation as a waddling triple-time march that, as it relentlessly proceeds, triggers cascading
string lines, evoking the water that eventually floods the chamber. When the apprentice
desperately hacks at the broom with an axe, heard as crashing cymbals, it replicates itself, and
we hear fragments of theme rushing faster and faster. (Goethe specifies that the proliferating
brooms work at double the pace.) After the sorcerer returns and halts the chaos, we hear a
hesitant, groaning version of the theme in the bassoon as he commands the broom back to its
corner, to await only the command of the master from now on. (2021) Through this piece you
can hear the different mood changes and how