Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice 19 November 2015 - 6 p.m.

‘J’appartiens au passé qu’on liquide…’

Known to the wider public mostly by his symphonic poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (immortalised in 1940 by Walt Disney in Fantasia), Paul Dukas remains one of the most enigmatic composers of the early 20th century. He had a Jewish father, a profoundly French, Catholich mother, and had also a German upbringing. Follower of the Romantics, the Impressionists and the Neoclassicals, a progressive but equally a conservative intellectual, Dukas (the final ‘s’ pronounced, as he wished) seems to embody the paradoxes of adjacent but clearly contrasting worlds and times. A musician-philosopher and a great teacher, Dukas was a genuine ‘maestro who generously offered the precious gifts of his talent and of his friendship’ (Gustave Samazeuilh)