Paul Dukas is known worldwide for L’Apprenti sorcier based on one of Goethe’s ballads and featured in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. The piece is a tour de force. Subtitled “Scherzo”, the orchestral work tells the story through musical gesture and was composed with greater attention to amusement than to strict classical form. Unfortunately, the popularity of L’Apprenti sorcier has overshadowed the rest of Dukas’ works, despite their great quality.

Dukas was uncompromisingly critical of his own pieces. He destroyed almost all of his written manuscripts after 1911, so his catalogue contains only seven large-scale compositions and a handful of shorter ad hoc pieces.

His compositions fall into two categories: program music, like L’Apprenti sorcier, inspired by literature such as the opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue [Ariadne and Bluebeard], the ballet La Péri, and the dramatic overture Polyeucte; and absolute music made up of symphonies, sonatas, and variations. In all of his compositions formal construction predominates, as it does in the magnificent expressive and formal equilibrium in Polyeucte.

Dukas’ masterpiece, the musical tale Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, on a libretto by Maeterlinck, is a symbolist drama with a mysterious atmosphere, dominated by female characters. In this opera, we were able to see a foreshadowing of the liberation of women. After its very successful Austrian premiere (1908) conducted by Alexander von Zemlinsky, Dukas earned compliments from Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

La Péri seduces with its abundance, the brilliance of its colours and its movement towards the light. The piece displays interconnected themes in its continuity. The most passionate, the Dance, is found in the main section and is in the form of six variations.

Symphonie en ut, one of the most important orchestral works in French music and a “work of genius” according to Jean Sibelius, demonstrates Dukas’ guiding principle: “The idea should create the form. The inverse is not possible to conceive.”

When speaking about the monumental and powerful Sonate pour piano, pianist Alfred Cortot emphasized that for Dukas, writing was “a form of translation, not an element of inspiration”. Of his compositions, Claude Debussy said: “He is a master of his emotions and he knows how to avoid useless clamours.”

In all of his work, he demonstrates how thoughts and emotions are not conflicting and incompatible but are instead complementary. For him, a humanist composer, thoughts organised emotions. Like Beethoven before him, Dukas sought to find equilibrium between form and expression. He remained faithful to tonality because “behind the most complex combinations of harmonies, the ear should always distinguish a depth of tonality: sometimes less apparent, but always real.” In the beginning of the 20th century, Dukas became disoriented by the evolution of music. For him music was fundamentally “the organised and harmonious decomposition of time”. Like his contemporary Sibelius, Dukas stopped composing.

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SELECTED WORKS

L'Apprenti sorcier (1896-1897)
Scherzo for orchestra after a ballad by Goethe
3.2.3.4 - 4.4.3.0 - timp.4 perc.hp - strings
Duration: 12'
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La Péri (1911-1912)
Danced poem in one tableau for orchestra
3.3.3.3 - 4.3.3.1 - timp.5perc.cel.2hp - strings
Duration: 20'
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Ariane et Barbe bleue (1907)
Tale in 3 acts, text by Maurice Maeterlinck
for soli, choir and orchestra
3.3.3.4 - 4.3.3.1 - timp.4 perc.2hp - strings
Duration: full evening
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Symphonie en ut (1895-1896)
for orchestra
3.3.2.2 - 4.3.3.1 - timp - strings
Duration: 38'
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Sonate en mi (1901)
for piano
Duration: 11'
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Variations, interlude et finale (1907)
On a theme by Jean-Philippe Rameau
for piano
Duration: 4'
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Polyeucte - ouverture (1891)
for orchestra
2.3.3.3 - 4.2.3.1 - timp.hp - strings
Premiere: Rome, April 1933
Duration: 18'
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La Plainte, au loin, du faune… (1920)
Piece written for the Tombeau de Claude Debussy
for piano
Duration: 4'
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Prélude élégiaque sur le nom de Haydn (1910)
for piano
Duration: 5'
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