[Thor Joachim Haga]

This was a thread I posted on FSM back in 2013, but it could fit nicely here:

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There is a whole bunch of programmatic, neo-romantic classical music that behaves as prototypes of film music, long before the film medium was even born. Wagner, Strauss, Mahler, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and so on.

But I’m curious about specific pieces.

Right now, I’m listening to Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, for example, which was composed practically in the same year as the birth of the film medium (1896). Of course, it has since BECOME film music, especially through FANTASIA, but it still had the DNA of film music when it premiered.

So….what are some specific pieces composed BEFORE 1896 that you consider classical film music prototypes, and why?