Walt Disney intended Fantasia to be an ongoing work, new stories and sections replacing older ones each time it was released. Since this gradual evolution was never realized, we have been given a movie for the year 2000 that is more than 85 percent brand new. Only The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has been retained from the original film. Walt’s nephew Roy Disney has been largely responsible for choosing the new selections, and I would say he has done a splendid job. For one thing, by including Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue he has given welcome recognition to an American composer, and by the addition of works by Shostakovich, Respighi, and Stravinsky, he has paid more attention to the 20th century than did the previous film. Of course, the soundtrack album can’t be considered in choosing library recordings of the works it represents, for all of them have been truncated, and in some cases re-orchestrated and more extensively arranged. But as a memento of a thoroughly enjoyable film experience, the CD can be highly recommended. James Levine conducts his two orchestras with great enthusiasm and gets a generally high level of execution from all his players. The recorded sound is okay, though scarcely state of the art. The climaxes reveal some distortion in the upper strings and percussion and sound rather constricted, as does the dynamic range. The CD booklet contains a well-reproduced, representative scene from the animation that was set to each piece.
