The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)

By far the most performed and recorded of Dukas' works, its notable appearance in the Walt Disney 1940 animated film Fantasia has led to the piece becoming widely known to audiences outside the classical concert hall.

Inspired by the Goethe poem, Dukas's work is part of the larger Romantic genre of programmatic music, which composers like Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss increasingly explored as an alternative to earlier symphonic forms.

Disney had acquired the music rights in 1937 when he planned to release a separate Mickey Mouse film which, at the suggestion of Leopold Stokowski, was eventually expanded into Fantasia.

In 1930, a decade prior to Fantasia, Sidney Levee directed, Hugo Riesenfeld and William Cameron Menzies produced, and Joseph M. Schenck presented a series of four short films of classical music.

One of the four, based on the Dukas music, was titled The Wizard's Apprentice;[4] this short film has been released on DVD and shown on Classic Arts Showcase.