The Sorcerer's Apprentice

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For the children's TV series, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice (TV series). For the animated Disney short, see Fantasia (film).
Illustration from around 1882 by S. Barth
Illustration from around 1882 by S. Barth

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of Goethe's poem Der Zauberlehrling (1797). The name also refers to Paul Dukas's L'apprenti sorcier symphonic poem of 1897 which was inspired by Goethe's poem. Goethe, in turn, had got the idea from Lucian's story of Philopseudes.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is also the title of three novels, one by François Augiéras, one by Elspeth Huxley, and another by Hanns Heinz Ewers. It is also the title of a Doctor Who novel by Christopher Bulis. The name is given to a CBBC show by which a professional magician chooses his apprentice. There is also a BBC radio play of the same name.

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[edit] General plot

The tale begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broomstick to do the work for him - using magic he is not yet fully trained in. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how. Despairing, he splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces transforms into a whole broomstick. The broomsticks take up pails and resume their work, now faster than ever. When all seems lost in a massive flood, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell, saving the day.

In some versions, the sorcerer expels the apprentice for causing the mess. In other versions the sorcerer, who is sometimes a bit amused at the apprentice having received a forceful object lesson for the need for proper control of magic he will never forget, simply chides him.

[edit] L'apprenti sorcier / Fantasia

Instrumentation: two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon (or contrabass sarrusophone), four horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, timpani, orchestra bells, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, harp and strings.
Preview for Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940
Preview for Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940

Although Dukas's musical piece was already quite well known and popular, it was made particularly famous by its inclusion in the 1940 Walt Disney animated film Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse plays the role of the apprentice. Its popularity caused it to be used again in Fantasia 2000.

L'apprenti sorcier is subtitled Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe, perhaps indicating that it was intended as a scherzo of Dukas's untitled symphony, with which it has some thematic similarity. On the other hand, L'apprenti sorcier is clearly program music while the symphony is abstract.

There have been numerous recordings of the music. The full effects of the lush orchestral work were first captured effectively with the advent of electrical recordings, including the 1929 performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini, released by RCA Victor. Toscanini also made one of the first high fidelity recordings of the music, again for RCA, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1950. The first stereophonic recording was probably by Charles Münch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, also for RCA.

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a cameo appearance by the brooms from Fantasia is accompanied by an excerpt of Dukas' musical piece.

[edit] Der Zauberlehrling

Goethe's poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas. The story proceeds as described above up to where the floor begins to flood. Not knowing how to control the enchanted broomstick, the apprentice splits it in two with an axe, only for each of the pieces to take up a pail and continue fetching water, now at twice the speed. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns, quickly breaks the spell and saves the day. The poem finishes with the old sorcerer's statement that powerful spirits should only be called by the master himself. Interestingly, the question of the sorcerer's anger with his apprentice, which appears in both Philopseudes and Fantasia, does not appear in Der Zauberlehrling.

Der Zauberlehrling is extremely well-known in the German-speaking world. The lines in which the apprentice implores the returning sorcerer to help him with the mess he has created have turned into a cliché, especially the line Die Geister, die ich rief ("The spirits that I called"), a garbled version of one of Goethe's lines, which is often used to describe a situation where somebody summons help or uses allies that he cannot control, especially in politics.

[edit] Philopseudes

Philopseudes (Greek for "Lovers of lies") is a short frame story by Lucian, written c. AD 150. The narrator, Tychiades, is visiting the house of a sick and elderly friend, Eucrates, where he has an argument about the reality of the supernatural. Several internal narrators then tell him various tales, intended to convince him that supernatural phenomena are real. Each story in turn is either rebutted or ridiculed by Tychiades. Eventually Eucrates recounts a tale extremely similar to Goethe's Zauberlehrling, which had supposedly happened to him in his youth. While the similarities are so great as to make it obvious that Lucian was Goethe's inspiration, there are several small differences:

  • The sorcerer is instead an Egyptian mystic, a priest of Isis called Pancrates;
  • Eucrates is not an apprentice, but a companion who eavesdrops on Pancrates casting his spell; and
  • Although a broom is listed as one of the items that can be animated by the spell, Eucrates actually uses a pestle. (Pancrates also sometimes used the bar of a door.)

However perhaps the most important difference is the moral of the story. In Der Zauberlehrling and in Fantasia, it is generally presumed that the story embodies some maxim or moral, and that it is something along the lines of "don't start what you can't finish" or "don't meddle with things you don't understand". In Philopseudes, however, the intention is to ridicule tall tales.

[edit] Movie adaptation

On February 12, 2007, Disney announced that actor Nicolas Cage would play the role of the sorcerer Yen Sid in a live-action version of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. [1]

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • A similar sounding theme can heard throughout the arcade game Zoo Keeper.
  • The Disney Company coined the name Yen Sid for the Sorcerer in 1940. Reversing the name spells D-I-S-N-E-Y.
  • The music is written in 9/8 time at the beginning and end, but in 3/8 time for the majority, which includes the main theme.
  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice, as used in Fantasia, has a place in the continuity in the Kingdom Hearts series, due to the appearance of Yen Sid and based on a book found in the Tower that reads: "All the king's past mischief is recorded here."

[edit] Media

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hollywood Reporter article from 2-12-2007 with Nicolas Cage information

[edit] See also

Similar themes (such as the power of magic or technology turning against the insufficiently wise person invoking it) are found in many traditions and works of art.

[edit] External links