I can’t tell you how many people of my generation say they were first introduced to Art (“classical”) Music through cartoons. There are more than a dozen music-themed Looney Tunes shorts, not to mention the marvelous pairing of music and emotion found in Ren & Stimpy. These of course are light cartoons, based on slap-stick comedy (or, in the case of Ren & Stimpy, truly absurd comedy). Disney, on the other hand, tended to take things a little more seriously.

In the years surrounding World War II, Disney was working hard to lift the American spirit, producing music-themed feel-good movies such as Make Mine Music (containing Peter & the Wolf and an Operatic Whale) and of course, Fantasia. Unlike cartoon comedy shorts which presented anarchic musical satire, Disney presented a fairly authentic version of Art Music performances. Still, the story and music of Disney’s Peter & the Wolf is very different from Prokofiev‘s, but not insultingly so. A composer who came out worse for wear after dealing with Disney was without a doubt Igor Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring was changed from a primitive pagan ritual into a dancing dinosaur ballet. Stravinsky said he was offered little choice whether or not to allow his piece to be used; Disney approached him and said he was going to use the Rite one way or the other – Stravinsky was offered only the choice to be paid or not.

Paul Dukas, on the other hand, died five years before Fantasia was released, and therefore didn’t have to negotiate with Disney when they decided to set his tone poem, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to cartoons. And, amazingly, Disney adapted neither the original story nor Dukas’ score in the film – it’s about as authentic as you can get, once you get over Mickey Mouse as a main character. Now, the image of magician Mickey Mouse can be found everywhere, and Dukas’ music is permanently associated with this performance

This week, I wanted to listen to a certain piece of music on the way to work. I didn’t have it on CD, but I pulled it up on my phone … but my phone refused to connect to my car’s Bluetooth! I was furious … my desires weren’t instantly gratified. Poor me.

Before recorded music, there was only one way to hear music – either you made the music yourself, or you listened to a live performance. This also meant that if hearing the newest, hottest music meant a lot more than turning on a radio, TV, or computer. You had to get a score, then you had to get it performed. And often, that meant you heard the latest symphony played not by an orchestra, but by on a keyboard – very often, a piano-duet (often called “piano four hands”  – one piano, two players; not to be confused with two pianos, two players, popularly called “dueling pianos”).

Four-hand piano music makes a ton of sound, and can cover the many moving parts of a complex symphony. Besides getting new music heard, four-hand scores are often the first thing a composer writes when preparing a large-scale opera or symphony – this way s/he can hear the piece and make edits before s/he takes the time to write out all the orchestra parts (a long and laborious process.) However, four-hand music is more than just playing orchestral works – many composers have written pieces specifically for this genre. Franz Schubert wrote his Fantasia in F minor in his last year (he died at 31). It was a gift for his student, whom he loved; she didn’t love him back. The gravity, weight, and maturity of this piece is a regular part of Schubert’s late works (like Winterreise), as he was preparing himself for a death he knew was coming (he suffered from late-stage syphilis.)

June 23rd is St. John’s Eve – that is to say, the day before the Nativity of John the Baptist, the Christian Feast Day that celebrates the forerunner and baptizer of Jesus. But more on that tomorrow.

St. John’s Eve just happens to be the setting for one of the best scary pieces ever written – A Night on Bald Mountain (also titled “St. John’s Eve on the Bare Mountain”), by Modest Mussorgsky. The spooky music speaks for itself. Mussorgsky himself describes how he wrote the piece. I thoroughly enjoy his words (taken from a letter to a friend), because he makes the compositional process seem like a compulsive, drunken all-nighter, with plenty of Russian resentment against the Germans:

“So far as my memory doesn’t deceive me, the witches used to gather on this mountain, … gossip, play tricks and await their chief—Satan. On his arrival, the witches formed a circle round the throne on which he sat, and sang his praise. When Satan was worked up into a sufficient passion by the witches’ praises, he gave the command for the sabbath, in which he chose for himself the witches who caught his fancy. So this is what I’ve done. At the head of my score I’ve put its content:

1. Assembly of the witches, their talk and gossip;
2. Satan’s journey;
3. Obscene praises of Satan;
4. Sabbath

The form and character of the composition are Russian and original … I wrote St. John’s Eve quickly, straight away in full score, I wrote it in about twelve days, glory to God … While at work on St. John’s Eve I didn’t sleep at night and actually finished the work on the eve of St. John’s Day, it seethed within me so, and I simply didn’t know what was happening within me … I see in my wicked prank an independent Russian product, free from German profundity and routine, and grown on our native fields and nurtured on Russian bread.”

This piece is now pretty much universally recognized as one of the best parts of Disney’s 1940 film, Fantasia, which also included masterworks such as The Rite of Spring and the Pastoral Symphony.