Dukas for kids: his life, his music, and what to play first

Paul Dukas was a French composer who lived from 1865 to 1935. He is known around the world for one piece, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It tells the tale of a young helper who casts a spell on a broom and cannot stop it. Dukas wrote other fine music, and he burned much more than he kept. The best first piece for a child is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which lasts about ten minutes.

Quick facts

• Born: 1865, in Paris, France
• Died: 1935, in Paris
• Era: Romantic and early Modern
• Played: piano
• Known for: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the ballet La Péri, and a symphony

The life in short

Dukas was the son of a banker. His mother was a pianist, and she died when he was five. He showed no special gift for music until he was 14, when he began to compose while getting over an illness.

He entered the Paris Conservatory at 16. One of his classmates was Claude Debussy, who became a lifelong friend. Dukas came second in the school’s top prize for composers and left, discouraged, to do his army service.

He made his living in two ways. He wrote about music for newspapers and journals, and his reviews were sharp and fair. Later he taught composition at the Conservatory, where his students loved him.

In 1897, he finished The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It was a hit at once and has stayed one.

Dukas was his own hardest judge. He worked at a slow pace, and he threw away what did not meet his standard. Near the end of his life, he burned a pile of finished scores. Only about a dozen of his works survive.

The piece that everyone knows

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is based on a poem by the German writer Goethe, written 100 years before the music. A sorcerer leaves his workshop. His apprentice, tired of carrying water, puts a spell on a broom to do the job. The broom fetches bucket after bucket and will not stop. The boy chops it in two with an axe, and now two brooms fetch water. The room floods. The sorcerer returns and ends the spell with a word.

In 1940, Walt Disney’s film Fantasia gave the part of the apprentice to Mickey Mouse. Millions of children met the music that way. See the Fantasia music list.

Read the full guide: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice listening guide.

What the music sounds like

Dukas used the orchestra with great skill. Every color is clear, and every instrument has a job. He liked strong rhythms and bright, clean sounds.

In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the bassoons play the hopping tune of the broom. See the bassoon for kids.

Pieces to play first

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Quiet, mysterious chords set the scene. Then the bassoons start the broom’s march, and the music builds to a flood.

Fanfare from La Péri. Two minutes for brass alone. It opens his ballet, and brass players around the world perform it by itself.

Villanelle, for horn and piano. He wrote it as a test piece for horn students in Paris. It moves from a calm tune to a gallop.

Symphony in C, last movement. A burst of energy for full orchestra, for older listeners.

Things to do together

Be the broom. Play The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. March with stiff legs when the bassoons play. Carry pretend buckets.

Find the chop. Listen for the loud crash when the apprentice chops the broom. Then listen for the tune starting again, twice over.

Tell it first. Tell the story before you play the piece. Then stop the music two or three times and ask what is happening.

Watch it. See the Mickey Mouse version from Fantasia after your child knows the music. Ask what the film added.

Keep or burn? Dukas destroyed music he did not think was good enough. Ask your child whether they keep their old drawings.

A teacher of composers

Dukas taught some of the important composers of the next generation, among them Olivier Messiaen.

Print and play

Fill in a composer study notebook page for Paul Dukas. Draw the flood on a listening journal page. For more music with a story, read classical music that tells a story. For his friend and classmate, read Debussy for kids.

For more composers from the same country, read French composers for kids. For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.