Casey Philharmonic Orchestra: Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Fairy Tales & Fables

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, made popular in Disney’s animated feature Fantasia, is an all-time favourite orchestral piece for so many people. Conducted by renowned conductor, Alex Vengerovski, this programme takes you on a journey of imagination to faraway, rustic places, and through fairy tales and fables. 

While you may not know it by name, Peer Gynt, written by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg in 1875, is almost as famous. Based on a poem/play, it tells the tale of a charming but lazy and arrogant peasant anti-hero who embarks on a series of fantastic voyages around the world, finding wealth and fame but never happiness until he returns home. And who does not know and love Khachaturian’s Spartacus, the musical telling of the story of the slave who led an uprising against the Romans –  the music also used in the 1979 film Caligula. The first half finishes with the most famous and loved movement of Berlioz’, Symphony Fantastique, the March to the Scaffold.

The second half of the concert begins with Ravel’s Mother Goose suite, musically representing scenes from various loved French fairy tales, including Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty. But the climax of the concert is the Sorcerer's Apprentice, a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, completed in 1897, known and loved by so many.

Conductor, Alex Vengerovski
Concertmaster: Julia Chen

Programme

Grieg, Peer Gynt Suites 1 & 2 (excepts)
Khachaturian, Adagio (from Spartacus)
Berlioz, Symphony Fantastique, movement 4
Interval
Ravel, Mother Goose Suite (including his Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty)
Dukas, Sorcerer’s Apprentice