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
Sorcerer (film) naive gesture of self-indulgence," and trivialized his effort to a mere attempt at remaking "his hero[,] Clouzot". David Badder, in "Monthly Film Bulletin", was of the opinion that even if the film had been truncated, it would not improve its quality. He described "Sorcerer" as "remarkably lacklustre", and did not appreciate the unstable tone of the movie which he called "impenetrably obscure". Additionally, he considered Scheider's role to be severely underdeveloped and "consist[ing] of meaningful stares off camera and mournful grimaces." On the other hand, "Sorcerer" garnered some acclaim from several major critics, including the "Chicago Sun-Times's" Roger Ebert, "The