"Walt Disney's Fantasia" by Deems Taylor. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940. First Edition with images from the film.
Fantasia is Walt Disney’s animated orchestral masterpiece and untold youngsters were introduced to and inspired by its music. This companion volume to the motion picture has many color images from the film. The musicians whose works are featured in both the motion picture and the book include Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Ponchielli, and Stravinsky. Actual musical phrases are printed decoratively throughout the book together with illustrations by Disney artists. Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the score of the motion picture.
Fantasia is divided into seven parts, each built around a well-loved musical work. In the first part Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is visualized in a whirl of brilliant abstractions. The second part is Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with the Russian Dance performed by orchids and thistles and with tropical fish swimming sinuously through the exotic Arabian dance. Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice comes next, starring Mickey Mouse in his greatest dramatic role.
Sections four and five are built on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. In the sixth part ostriches, hippos, and elephants, in ballet dresses reminiscent of Degas, dance to the music of the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda.
The seventh and final section represents the triumph of good over evil. In the opening – Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain – Satan and the dark spirits of the night perform a stormy danse-macabre. Then, as the music fades into Schubert’s Ave Maria, the forces of darkness are routed, the church bells ring, and Fantasia is brought to a close in streaming sunlight.
"Walt Disney's Fantasia" by Deems Taylor. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940. First Edition with images from the film.
Fantasia is Walt Disney’s animated orchestral masterpiece and untold youngsters were introduced to and inspired by its music. This companion volume to the motion picture has many color images from the film. The musicians whose works are featured in both the motion picture and the book include Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Ponchielli, and Stravinsky. Actual musical phrases are printed decoratively throughout the book together with illustrations by Disney artists. Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the score of the motion picture.
Fantasia is divided into seven parts, each built around a well-loved musical work. In the first part Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is visualized in a whirl of brilliant abstractions. The second part is Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with the Russian Dance performed by orchids and thistles and with tropical fish swimming sinuously through the exotic Arabian dance. Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice comes next, starring Mickey Mouse in his greatest dramatic role.
Sections four and five are built on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. In the sixth part ostriches, hippos, and elephants, in ballet dresses reminiscent of Degas, dance to the music of the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda.
The seventh and final section represents the triumph of good over evil. In the opening – Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain – Satan and the dark spirits of the night perform a stormy danse-macabre. Then, as the music fades into Schubert’s Ave Maria, the forces of darkness are routed, the church bells ring, and Fantasia is brought to a close in streaming sunlight.