Program notes

Program Notes

For Fantasia! – October 11, 2026

A Journey of Imagination

Good afternoon and welcome to NPOI’s opening concert of the 2026-27 season.  Today’s concert will feature pieces that were included in Disney’s Fantasia films.  As sound recording and animation techniques improved during the 1930’s, Disney produced short films called Silly Symphonies to test out the new technology.  One of the last of these was going to be The Sorcerer’s Apprentice featuring Mickey Mouse and set to the music of Paul Dukas, but Disney had the idea to expand it to a full length feature film.  Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra played eight orchestral pieces, and over 1,000 artists and technicians worked for three years to complete the film.  The sequel Fantasia 2000 kept The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and added seven new pieces. The New Philharmonic will play three from the 1940 film and one from 2000.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice will be featured in February, and the Nutcracker Suite in December.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)

The Carnival of the Animals (arr. William C. White)
– 1886

Saint-Saëns wrote the Carnival of the Animals as pure fun.  It was intended for his students, and the orchestration is for a small chamber group of two pianos, string quintet with a flute, clarinet and xylophone.  His friend, cellist Charles Lebouc, gave the first performance at a private concert in March 1886.  His friends loved it, but Saint-Saëns declared that it would never be published during his lifetime because it would detract from his reputation as a serious composer.  In spite of that, it was performed many times at private concerts, always to great enthusiasm, and once, the musicians wore masks of the animals they represented.  After Saint-Saëns’ death in 1921, Carnival of the Animals was published and performed all over the world.  One critic wrote, “In every bar, at every point, there are unexpected and irresistible finds. Themes, whimsical ideas, and instrumentation compete with buffoonery, grace, and science. … When he likes to joke, the master never forgets that he is the master.”

The Finale was included in Fantasia 2000, and James Earl Jones asked that age-old question:  What would happen if you gave a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?  The arrangement NPOI will play is by William C. White who orchestrated the piece so it can be played by a full symphony orchestra.  There are fourteen short movements in this piece:

  1. Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
  2. Hens and Roosters
  3. Swift Animals
  4. Tortoises
  5. The Elephant
  6. Kangaroos
  7. Aquarium
  8. Characters with Long Ears
  9. The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods
  10. Aviary
  11. Musicians
  12. Fossils
  13. The Swan
  14. Finale

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886)

Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda
– 1880

Dance of the Hours is a short ballet that occurs in the Act III finale of the opera La Gioconda.  La Gioconda translates as “the happy or joyous woman,” but the irony of the title, considering the tragic plot, is lost in English, and so the opera is almost always referred to in the original language.  The end of Act III is a huge elegant party which is intended to culminate in the public execution of one of the principal female characters.  The ballet itself depicts four different times of day: Dawn, Morning, Twilight and Night followed by a lively can-can.  The opera is not often performed, but this ten minute ballet is quite popular on its own thanks to its sweet melodies.  Walt Disney’s version in Fantasia is a comedy featuring  dancing ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants and alligators.  The tune from the Morning section was also used by comedian Allan Sherman for his novelty song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! A Letter from Camp” in 1963.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Selections from Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral”
– 1808

Beethoven was a great lover of nature and spent much time at a farmhouse outside of Vienna where he took long walks in the beautiful countryside. In 1802, his doctor had recommended that he spend some time outside of the noise of the city to help with his growing deafness.  He wrote in a letter, “How glad I am to be able to roam in the wood and thicket, among the trees and flowers and rocks. No one can love the country as I do…My bad hearing does not trouble me here. In the country every tree seems to speak to me, saying ‘Holy, holy!’ In the woods there is enchantment that expresses all things.”

The Sixth Symphony was written during the summers of 1807 and 1808 simultaneously with the magnificent Symphony No. 5. The Fifth Symphony in a nutshell is about Beethoven’s rage and eventual triumph over his fate of deafness. The polar opposite Sixth Symphony reflects his feelings about nature in a profound way that the words of his letter cannot. The composer gave each of the five movements a title to describe the scene, one of the first examples of programmatic music that tells a story.

The New Philharmonic is performing the fourth and fifth movements which are played without pause between them.  The fourth movement begins with rumbling in the basses—the distant roll of thunder. “The Thunderstorm” arrives and rages throughout the orchestra. Lightning is provided by sharp attacks in the timpani.  The storm gradually subsides with the beginning of the fifth movement, “Shepherd’s Song and Happy Thankful Feelings after the Storm.” The song begins in the clarinet, moving to the horn and then echoing through the orchestra. The symphony ends quietly with one last refrain of the song by a muted horn as the sun sets on the tranquil scene.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881)

Night on Bald Mountain (orchestrated by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)
-1886

Originally titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain, Mussorgsky wrote in a letter to a friend: “My St. John’s Night is, in form and character, Russian and original…I wrote it quickly, straight away in full score without preliminary rough drafts, in twelve days.  It seethed within me, and I worked day and night.  And now I see in my wicked prank an independent Russian product grown on our country’s soil and nurtured on Russian bread.”

The work depicts the forces of evil that were said to come together the night before the Feast of St. John the Baptist, and Mussorgsky actually finished it on St. John’s Eve (June 23, 1867.)  At the end of the piece, evil melts away with the coming dawn and the ringing of church bells.  Unfortunately, the piece was never performed during his lifetime, although Mussorgsky tried to sneak parts of it into other compositions.  After his death, his friend Rimsky-Korsakov heavily edited the piece, and this is the version that has become Mussorgsky’s most famous work.  The Night on Bald Mountain closes the original Fantasia film with its frightening demon, Chernabog, and the forces of evil at his command.

Program Notes by Rebecca Cotton