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Quotations from Fantasia

Fantasia is an animated family fantasy film about a variety of Western classical music and stories put into animated interpretations. The Disney group does "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", "The Rite of Spring", "Dance of the Hours" and many more. Starring Leopold Stokowski and Deems Taylor.

This wonderful family movie titled Fantasia is a classic among classics. It's wonderful for children of all ages and adults too. Read some quotes from this animated adventure below.


Narrator: You know, it's funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. The one composition of Tchaikovsky's that he really detested was his "Nutcracker Suite", which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote. It's a series of dances taken out of a full-length ballet called "The Nutcracker" that he once composed for the St. Petersburg Opera House. It wasn't much of a success and nobody performs it nowadays, but I'm pretty sure you'll recognize the music of the suite when you hear it. Incidentally, you won't see any nutcracker on the screen; there's nothing left of him but the title.
Narrator: And now we're going to hear a piece of music that tells a very definite story. As a matter of fact, in this case, the story came first and the composer wrote the music to go with it. It's a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years: a legend about a sorcerer who had an apprentice. He was a bright young lad; very anxious to learn the business. As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright, because he started practicing some of the boss' best magic tricks before learning how to control them. One day, for instance, when he'd been told by his master to carry water to fill a cauldron, he had the brilliant idea of having someone do the job for him. So he brought a broomstick to life to carry the water. Well, this worked very well at first. Unfortunately, however, having forgotten the magic formula that would make the broomstick stop carrying the water, he found he'd started something he couldn't finish.
Narrator: What you're going to see on the screen are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good.
Narrator: And now we're going to hear a piece of music that tells a very definite story. It's a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years, a legend about a sorcerer who had an apprentice. He was a bright young lad, very anxious to learn the business. As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright, because he started practicing some of the boss's best magic tricks before learning how to control them.
Narrator: Now we're going to do one of the most famous and popular ballets ever written: the "Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli's opera "La Gioconda". It's a pageant of the hours of the day. We see first a group of dancers in costumes to suggest the delicate light of dawn. Then a second group enters dressed to represent the brilliant light of noon day. As these withdraw, a third group enters in costumes that suggest the delicate tones of early evening. Then a last group, all in black, the somber hours of the night. Suddenly, the orchestra bursts into a brilliant finale in which the hours of darkness are overcome by the hours of light. All this takes place in the great hall, with its garden beyond, of the palace of Duke Alvise, a Venetian nobleman.
Narrator: The last number in our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly... Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred.
Next: Gentleman's Agreement
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