The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Overture from the opera "Faust"

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
"Night on Bald Mountain"
(orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)

Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (after the ballad by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
"Symphonie fantastique" op. 14
(Épisode de la vie d'un artiste)

MDR-Sinfonieorchester
Paolo Bortolameolli - conductor

A world of magic, dreams and musical shivers awaits. The opening bars of Gounod's overture plunge the listener straight into the legendary Faust drama of pact, love and ruin. Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" conjures witches and sorcerers at their nocturnal revels, while Dukas' "Sorcerer's Apprentice" - with its whirling broomsticks - is a stroke of wit and genius that has held cult status since its famous Hollywood adaptation. The monumental finale belongs to Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique": the feverish visions of a lovesick artist unfold from the ballroom through the march to the scaffold and on to an ecstatic witches' sabbath.