The Études, Fantasia and the magic of musical education

How we hope The Études can help introduce children to the magic of classical music...

A still from Chopin's Drawings by Dorota Kobiela, set to
Chopin's Opus 25, No 2

Music education in the UK is something BreakThru feels very strongly about. Ensuring that children are fired up about the magic of music is one of the driving forces behind the Études project, in which the music of Chopin's elegant piano studies is paired up with a virtuoso animation, and we are currently exploring a variety of ways to aid teachers in the classroom and parents at home to reach out to their children's musical potential.

The Études are 27 short piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin intended to both advance a new technical form of playing (Études translates as 'studies') as well as offering pleasure and variety in their own right. BreakThru Films founder Hugh Welchman became interested in their potential during his immersion in the world of Prokofiev during the production of Peter and the Wolf. Their beauty and the range of emotions they conjure made them the perfect fit for Welchman's desire to create a varied body of cutting-edge animations in a variety of differing mediums. Each of Chopin's pieces is a challenging task for any pianist, and BreakThru sought to work with visual artists and animators who were themselves challenging and pushing formal boundaries.

The minimalist madness of Anne-Kristin Berge's Pl.Ink,
 set to Opus 10, No 4

The Études can be viewed separately, as each tells an individual story, or as a set, as many of the individual films share aesthetic or thematic elements in common. They are intended to appeal to children, containing bright colours, attractive characters and constant movement and rhythm, but also to resonate with adults. Scarecrow tells the pathos-filled story of a soldier's death in Poland's November Revolution, while Chopin's Drawings gives us an insight into the composer's incredible childhood through moving sketches which emerge and blend through his elegant musical notation. As with Peter and the Wolf the Études seek to offer an engaging and fulfilling experience for audiences of all ages. Pl.Ink and Fat Hamster both use vibrant physical comedy to tell simple stories which capture the frenetic and energetic tone of the music. They show that classical music does not merely have to be beautiful and life-affirming, but that it can also be playful and genuinely comic.

Fat Hamster by Adam Wyrwas,
set to Opus 25, No 8

The clear ancestor of the Études is Walt Disney's ground-breaking Fantasia, produced in 1940, in a world which was scarcely ready to accept the collision of animation and classical music. As Disney historian Hugh Trimble eloquently argues in his blog, this was also perceived as a clash of low and high culture. Fantasia is set within a mythical theatre, where the 'greatest hits' of classical music are presented in a variety of animated settings and styles. It was intended as a showcase for Disney's multi-talented animators, but also to promote his conviction that the worlds of music and animation were never far apart. Disney had been producing his 'Silly Symphonies' for 12 years, and indeed Fantasia started life as one such vignette, the now famous 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' sequence. Fantasia demonstrated that like classical music animation could take a simple motif or idea, and owing to the elasticity of the form, twist it into surprising or inspiring narratives.

Mickey as Paul Dukas' 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'
in Disney's Fantasia (1940)

Owing to the popularity of Fantasia since its release, and most particularly the life its short segments found on television as regular components of the studio's popular 'Disney Time', it has offered generations of children their introduction to classical music. Mickey's antics have demonstrated that classical music does not have to be dry or dusty, that it does not require a musical education but rather inspires one, and we hope that the Études project can provide similar inspiration for a new generation of musicians and music lovers.

- Stewart Pringle