The Sorcerer's Apprentice him in his youth. It is, indeed, the oldest known variation of this tale type. While the similarities are so great as to make it obvious that Lucian was Goethe's inspiration, there are several minor differences: Similar themes (such as the power of magic or technology turning against the insufficiently wise person invoking it) are found in many traditions and works of art: Following Goethe's poem and Dukas' symphonic piece and the film "Fantasia", the term "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has had numerous iterations as the title of various media pieces. These include several novels and nonfiction books, including novels by
The Sorcerer "The Musical Times" mused that "it seems as if every composition had grown up in the mind of the author as he wrote the words"; and "The Pall Mall Gazette" called the union between composer and librettist "well-assorted", arguing that "the opera contains several very happily designed pieces, in which one cannot tell (and need not know) whether the merit of the original underlying idea belongs to the composer of the poem or to the author of the score". A dissenting voice was "Figaro", which claimed that there was nothing in "The Sorcerer" that could not have been written by