A few weeks ago I wrote about remembering some classic children's literature more from the movies and/or television versions than the books, and I admitted that embarrassed me to the core. But here is one film I loved as a child that stands alone and treasured in my memory.
I have seen Fantasia numerous times on the big screen and in television versions. I always love it, however they change this and that within various re-issues over eighty years.
The original version came out in 1940 and featured segments of classical music and animated stories. The music was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Leopold Stokowski. It was a tour de force of the Disney Company and its animation artists, with famed composer Deems Taylor as narrator. The opening segment is Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue, showing the orchestra in fanciful colors turning into abstract designs in tune with the music.
The second episode brings selections from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Suite from his ballet The Nutcracker. Various dances from the score are performed by imaginative characters.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice brings us Mickey Mouse as the young helper who tries to improve on his master's magic with disastrous results. Paul Dukas composed this piece in 1897 based on a poem by Goethe from 1797.
The evolution of the world is the focus of The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky (1913) from the beginning of the Earth to the age of the dinosaurs.
After an intermission of jazz music, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (No. 6 in F major) is the soundtrack for a mythological figures to cavort with Bacchus, only to be reprimanded by Zeus and Vulcan.
Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours (from his 1876 opera La Gioconda) has four parts, each more hilarious than the last, representing morning (Madame Upanova and Ostriches) , afternoon (Hyacinth Hippo), evening (Elephantine and the bubbles), and night (Ben Ali Gator), followed by a mash-up finale.
As laughable as the last segment was, the final piece is very frightening. Modeste Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain begins with the devil emerging from the stone but ends with Franz Schubert's Ave Maria as a troupe of monks with torches enter a ruined cathedral.
If you haven't seen Fantasia lately or if you haven't shown it to your kids or grandkids, prepare them for a stunning presentation! Many of the segments are on YouTube and the DVD is available. That new Disney streaming service might have it too.
It has certainly been one of the influential films of my life.
It has certainly been one of the influential films of my life.
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