The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas) Romantic genre of programmatic music, which composers like Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss increasingly explored as an alternative to earlier symphonic forms. Unlike other tone poems, such as "La mer" by Debussy or "Finlandia" by Sibelius, Dukas's work is, like works such as "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" by Strauss, descriptively programmatic, closely following the events described in the Goethe poem. It was customary, in fact, to publish the poem as part of the orchestral score. The instrumentation of the piece consists of two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two soprano clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons
The Sorcerer (cave art) later scholars erroneously claiming that "The Sorcerer" was evidence that the concept of a Horned God dated back to Paleolithic times. Likewise, Peter Ucko concluded that inaccuracies in the drawing were caused by Breuil's working in dim gas-light, in awkward circumstances, and that he had mistaken cracks in the rock surface for man-made marks. However, these views have also been questioned, noting that "The Sorcerer" is composed of both charcoal drawings and etching within the stone itself. Details, such as etching, are often difficult to view from photographs due to their size and the quality of the light source. Particularly