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 the company's last few seasons before it closed in 1982. Amateur companies that had dropped the opera restored it to their rotations after the 1970 revival, and it still receives regular productions, both professional and amateur. The following table summarises the main London productions of "The Sorcerer" during Gilbert and Sullivan's lifetimes: The early reviews were generally favourable. According to "The Times", "The Sorcerer" "achieved a genuine success, and, moreover, a success in every respect deserved". "The Era" praised both libretto and music: "the libretto, both in the prose and poetical portions, displays remarkable facility in writing fanciful and witty