‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is a much-loved and iconic scene in Disney’s Fantasia. It was even used again in Fantasia 2000 and no one minded, because watching this scene, which stars Mickey Mouse as the apprentice, is always a joy. Technically, this is not a film of the book. It’s really an animated short of a symphonic tone poem of a ballad, but that doesn’t sound like it makes sense.

‘Der Zauberlehrling’ is a ballad by Goethe (1797) and there are a few English translations, which may differ in word choices but are basically the same concept. An unnamed apprentice, wishing to be as powerful as his master and to lighten the load of the chores, uses a magic spell on a broom, which grows a head, arms and legs. Pleased with himself, he watches the broom fetch water from a stream, pool, or similar, to fill a bath or cauldron. However, when there is enough water, the broom won’t stop. The apprentice, forgetting the magic word to end the spell, resorts to chopping the broom in two. Even worse, the two pieces are now two brooms, fetching more buckets of water and flooding the place. Luckily, the sorcerer returns and all is righted.

This story was the inspiration for Paul Dukas’ music – properly termed a symphonic tone poem – titled ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ (1897). It’s a fantastic, dramatic piece, the perfect soundtrack to the animated short in Fantasia. It’s not possible to hear the music without imagining Mickey Mouse causing chaos with a pointy hat. There are three main differences from the original ballad. Firstly, the broom is not merely cut into two pieces, but many splinters. For some reason I always found the most disturbing bit of this scene was not the splinters coming back to life as approximately one hundred brooms, each with two buckets of water, but when Mickey is chopping at the bristles, which strongly resemble a moustache wriggling around on its own. The second difference is that the sorcerer (who I have discovered is named Yen Sid – ‘Disney’ backwards) is angry, his eyes bulging like boiled eggs. Mickey even gets a spank with the broom to help him on his way back to the well. I have the notion that the sorcerer left his hat out on purpose, and that it was a test of Mickey’s character. The third main difference is that in the ballad, the apprentice forgets the magic word. It doesn’t seem as if Mickey even knew the magic word. He has to flick through the pages of a spell book, while caught in a whirlpool. When the sorcerer stops the spell, he gestures grandly with his arms, dispersing the waves. Of course, no one speaks in the animated sections of the film, so there couldn’t be a magic word.

‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is brilliant, although not my favourite part of the film. That award goes jointly to Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ and Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on the Bald Mountain’… dinosaurs and demons!

Image from Rotten Tomatoes website, (c) Disney.