Ever since Walt Disney’s animation movie Fantasia, the whole world knows Paul Dukas’ dazzling scherzo The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It is, without a doubt, a brilliant piece of music full of drama with strong musical themes and orchestral splendour. Dmitri Shostakovich’s second cello concerto was also immediately highly acclaimed when it premiered in 1966. People particularly loved the scherzo, for which the Russian composer adopted a remarkably grotesque humour and used the tunes of the Odessa-based street song Bread rolls, come buy my bread rolls. Compared to that, the dynamic themes and Bohemian melodies of Antonín Dvořák’s eighth symphony radiate unbroken optimism.
