Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra is a 25-minute concerto for orchestra & animated film that flies through the instruments of the orchestra to explore the age-old connection of creativity and technology. Philharmonia Fantastique is a collaboration between composer and DJ Mason Bates, Oscar-winning director and sound designer Gary Rydstrom, and animation director Jim Capobianco. Guided by a magical Sprite, we see violin strings vibrate, brass valves slice air, and drum heads resonate. Imaginatively blending traditional and modern animation styles, it is a kinetic and cutting edge guide to the orchestra. By the film’s end, the orchestra overcomes its differences to demonstrate “unity from diversity” in a spectacular finale.

The concert also includes two pieces featured in the animated features Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. The great German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), provided the inspiration for Paul Dukas’s magical orchestral scherzo, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. In a ballad entitled Die Zauberlehrling, Goethe tells the story of a magician’s apprentice. The apprentice has observed his master’s ability to bring a broomstick to life in order to do the sorcerer’s bidding. The apprentice has divined the sorcerer’s magical incantation. And so, when the sorcerer departs, the apprentice animates the broomstick and orders it to fetch water. The broomstick complies, but much too enthusiastically—soon, the magician’s house is overflowing with water. The apprentice tries to stop the disaster by chopping the broom in half with an axe, but that causes two brooms to emerge and further inundate the house. Finally, the sorcerer returns, and with a wave of his hand, restores calm. The action of Goethe’s poem is masterfully portrayed in Dukas’s scintillating music.

The Carnival of the Animals was a work that Saint-Saëns truly delighted in writing, but wanted to keep – like an exquisite private joke – for very exclusive amusement until his death, lest it overshadow his other, more serious compositions. Fourteen movements long, the zoological inspired, but satire-edged, suite was performed for selective audiences only until it was published posthumously.

Learn more:

Sprite’s World: https://www.spritesworld.org/