Fantasia

Walt Disney 128 minutes, 1940

I cried myself silly when I first saw Dumbo; I adored Bambi and I admit to a sneaking admiration for the Three Caballeros. But the Disney film I owed most to was Fantasia, which pitched me headlong into classical music.

Okay, Stravinsky loathed what Stokowsky, the conductor, and Walt did to his Rite of Spring, and I daresay some of the other composers who got done-over gyrated quietly in their graves. But thousands upon thousands of us listened to their music for the first time.

The strange thing is that the episodes we once thought successful are now regarded as retrog rade ( Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony as fake Greek myth), and some of those we regretted as pure kitsch (Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours) now seem joyously camp.

As for the Stravinsky, it sure impressed me at the time, and I was terrified by Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain. Which goes to prove that fashions may change but you can't keep an innovative piece of animation down. Disgracefully populist perhaps, but if classical music is to survive for a new generation maybe we need to avoid holding our noses.