It was the "soundtrack music" of its day, written to underscore the live performance of a play-as in Edvard Grieg's music for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt.
Grieg was just one of many classical composers who took on the task of writing what is called "incidental music." And in most cases, the results are far better known than the plays they were written for-often justifiably so.
In this hour, theatrical works by Purcell, Bizet, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Grieg, and Vaughan Williams.