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
Aurora (tone poem) Aurora (tone poem) Aurora is an orchestral tone poem by William Lloyd Webber which is acknowledged to be among the composer's finest works. Written in 1948, it lay unperformed for many years. When a recording was issued in 1986 the Guardian newspaper's reviewer, Edward Greenfield, described the work as: " Music as sensuous as any you will find by a British composer". William Lloyd Webber himself had this to say in a programme note about "Aurora": “Arriving from the East in a chariot of winged horses, dispelling night and dispersing the dews of the morning. Aurora was the Roman Goddess