Fantasia 2000

Fantasia 2000: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack is the soundtrack to Fantasia 2000, a sequel to the animated anthology film Fantasia (1940). It features eight individual score suites for each segment and were named after the same title of these segments that are set to pieces of classical music. The film went through several development section, after the success of the 1990 re-issue and home-video sales of Fantasia. James Levine conducted six of the tracks from the film, which are performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, while the rest of the two tracks: especially one for The Sorcerer's Apperentice segment reused music from the 1940 film, while the score for Rhapsody in Blue was originally conducted by Bruce Boughton for the film, while Levine conducted for the soundtrack. The track was performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra. The album released on November 30, 1999, by Walt Disney Records and Sony Classical Records, went on to reach the number one spot on the Billboard Top Classical Albums chart in July 2000. Background Walt Disney initially planned to have Fantasia on continual release, replacing older classical segments featured in the film, with newer ones so that audiences would never see the same film twice, but was dropped following its box office failure and mixed critical response, with preliminary work on new segments were halted. After late-1980s, the sequel for the film was revived shortly after Michael Eisner became chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company in 1984, when Walt's nephew, vice chairman Roy E. Disney, suggested it to him at a lunch. Disney once asked André Previn to work on a Fantasia film but Previn declined after he learned it was to feature songs by the Beatles rather than classical music, whereas Eisner approached Leonard Bernstein with the same idea, but while he seemed enthusiastic, Bernstein died before production began. After the 1990 reissue of the film became success, and record pre-orders for the film's home video in 1991, Eisner greenlit the sequel for the film following public interest in the franchise. Disney and Walt Disney Feature Animation president Thomas Schumacher invited Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine and manager Peter Gelb to a meeting in September 1991, following search of a suitable conductor. Disney recalled: "I asked James what his thought was on a three minute version of Beethoven's fifth symphony.