‘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.

This is a Romantic book with a capital R. Although I hadn’t read it before, I could recognise its influence in the literature that came after. For a thin book (under 200 pages) it causes a big impact, like a small meteor creating a large crater in the earth. I can’t say I enjoyed the book. It’s too sad for that. However, I liked the straightforward writing style and passionate voice of young Werther. There are a lot of human truths in the book, too. It’s epistolary (narrated through letters), a common device in the 18th century. Werther tells of his love for Lotte, a young woman engaged to a man who is Werther’s opposite in character. The engagement was a wish of Lotte’s dying mother. Now the angelic Lotte is a mother to her own siblings, which charms Werther’s heart. As his obsession develops, so does his depression as he realises he can never be more than a friend to Lotte.

I would recommend this book if you’re looking for a shorter classic, particularly a translated one. Just be prepared for the tragedy.

First published in 1774. This edition is a Penguin Red Classic, 2006, translated from the German by Michael Hulse.