Directed by Wilfred Jackson, with music adapted by Leigh Harline, the action follows a small music band, conducted by Mickey Mouse, which struggles through a distraction-filled public performance. Clarence Nash provides the voice of Donald Duck, the only speaking character.[4] The film remains among the most highly acclaimed of the Disney shorts.
Mickey's performance is first disrupted by Peter Pig's vibrato trumpet and Paddy Pig's tuba playing Prelude: Dawn from the William Tell overture. Meanwhile, Donald Duck rolls a vendor cart through the audience selling popcorn, lemonade, peanuts, and ice cream, which further causes a distraction to Mickey.
While the band is playing the "Finale" segment, Donald plays "Turkey in the Straw" at the same tempo as the band. Overhearing Donald, the entire band absent-mindedly find themselves playing Donald's song. Realizing his mistake, Mickey gets mad over his performance being disrupted in this manner and splits Donald's flute in half, only for Donald to get another one out. They play the song once more and Donald is stopped by Mickey, who splits the flute again. The band resumes the segment and Donald pulls out a third flute and plays "Turkey in the Straw" again, but before Mickey can stop him again, Donald breaks the flute himself. An angry trombonist grabs Donald by the neck, shakes out several of his flutes and forces him off the stage, knocking him backwards into the vendor cart.
While Donald tries to play the song again, a hornet harasses him. When the hornet lands on Mickey's hat, Donald throws ice cream at the hornet, but it flies into Peter Pig's trumpet; he shoots it out, accidentally hitting Mickey with it. The ice cream slides under Mickey's uniform, making him shake around, causing the band to briefly play The Streets of Cairo until it falls out and he kicks it away. Mickey has the band play Ranz des Vaches and swats his baton at the hornet, temporarily causing the band to briefly play notes more drastically different than the song. Percussionist Horace Horsecollar tries to kill the hornet by squishing it with his cymbals and with a hammer, but accidentally hits Goofy's head instead, driving his head down into his jacket. He continues playing his clarinet from inside it while Horace leaves in shame.
When the band comes to the "Storm" segment of the overture, it summons an actual tornado, prompting the audience and Donald to run away. The benches that the audience members were sitting on come to life (each wearing a hat that fell off an audience member) and also begin running for their lives as well. Donald tries to take shelter in some trees only for the tornado to tie them in knots with Donald in the middle. The tornado sucks up and destroys everything in its path, even the pavilion on which the band is playing, but the band is so used to distractions at this point that they continue to play from inside the tornado, in which Mickey floats through the remains of a wrecked house. The tornado suddenly freezes when Mickey takes a pause conducting and goes in reverse as the band finishes the last part of the song. As the storm passes, the band is thrown into a tree and they finish the overture. By this time, the only remaining audience member is Donald Duck who applauds enthusiastically. Witnessing Donald playing "Turkey in the Straw" as an encore, the angry band members throw their instruments at him, which ends with a tuba being thrown on top of him. Donald's hands appear out of the tuba's blowpiece and plays a final flutter of notes.
The Band Concert has become one of the most highly acclaimed Disney short films. Esquire magazine cultural critic Gilbert Seldes wrote that "[none of] dozens of works produced in America at the same time in all the other arts can stand comparison with this one." The Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini was such a fan of The Band Concert that he saw it six times in the theater and later invited Walt Disney to his home in Italy.[7]
In The Disney Films, Leonard Maltin said that The Band Concert is "one of the best cartoons ever made anywhere... There are nuances of expression in Mickey's character throughout this film that had seldom been explored in earlier shorts. The pacing is also entirely different from the standard Mickey Mouse comedies of the early thirties. Instead of trying to pack in a thousand gags a minute, The Band Concert takes its time and builds to a crescendo."[8]
The Band Concert was rated third in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, as rated by members of the field of animation.[9] As a result, it was the highest-ranked Disney cartoon on the list, and the only one in the top 5 not produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons.
According to Leonard Maltin, the 1942 Mickey Mouse film Symphony Hour was somewhat of a remake of The Band Concert.
In the 1942 wartime cartoon, All Together, Mickey and his whole band from the cartoon is seen in the parade.
In the video game Kingdom Hearts II, in the Garden area of Disney Castle, there is a topiary sculpture of all characters in the band besides Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.
The Band Concert is one of the parade units that was featured in the Tokyo Disneyland parade Disney on Parade: 100 Years of Magic, which depicts a large inflatable rendition of Mickey from the cartoon. It was later reused for Hong Kong Disneyland's Disney on Parade.
^Kaufman, J.B.; Gerstein, David (2018). Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN978-3-8365-5284-4.
^While two more Mickey Mouse releases were produced in black and white, the series otherwise switched to color on a permanent basis. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 108-109. ISBN0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
^The overture was significantly abridged to account for events in the film. It was also played out of order, starting with the "Finale" (the "Lone Ranger" segment), continuing with the Ranz des Vaches "Daybreak" movement, and ending with the "Prelude" and "Storm" movements.
