[Thor Joachim Haga]

Yes, you can of course go VERY broad and say that “music with drama” has existed since the dawn of mankind. But that’s not really what I mean with film music prototypes.

I’m not a music history expert, but I think maybe the earliest origins of what comes CLOSE to a “music with drama” type expression that can be comparable is madrigals and ‘tone paintings’ from the late 1500s. Symphonic music the way we think of it today wasn’t really invented yet, but they had some dramatic instrumental passages that have that vibe. But probably from the early 1600s onwards is more comparable, and obviously a LOT from the 1800s.