Curious, have you read The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the oldest known written story? Written on clay tablets about 1500-1700 years before the Iliad.

No...

Brothers Quay and Martinu are my only exposures so far. (Too bad there's no ashamed by one's own ignorance emoticon)

Actually...I'm just waiting for the twelfth tablet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" / Gustav Mahler / Oskar Fried / Recorded c. 1923 on twenty-two, four-minute sides! / Pearl (record label)

Elektra / Richard Strauss / Sir Georg Solti / Birgit Nilsson / Bald Gary Oldman?

Carl Nielsen / The Six Symphonies, The Three Concertos / BIS-CD-614-616 / Myung-Whun Chung and Neeme Järvi

Is it me, or does Nielsen look like Mark Hamill?

Siegfried / Richard Wagner / Solti...

The first Industrial music?

Beethoven / Kreutzer Sonata / performed by Bela Bartok and Jozsef Szigeti / 1940 Library of Congress

No, I would go with one of Beethoven's who was a major influence on Wagner. Beethoven is my choice for the first Heavy Metal musician as well.

I wasn't being romantic...I meant it literally!

The opening of Siegfried has Mime, Alberich's brother, forging a blade in his cave within the forest. The effect must be made by someone pounding on a metal bar or something. Someone else has the score for Siegfried at the library right now...so I don't know what it is exactly.

I don't think Beethoven did anything like that...I guess you could make a case for Wellington's Victory. It was written for the Panharmonicon, a mechanical orchestra which employs a large battery of percussion.

I consider the forging of metal industrial...the sound of war is another thing.

Hey, it all goes back to Adam and Eve anyway.

Another obvious one is the The Iron Foundry by Mossolov. Metal sheets are used to create the sound of clashing iron and steel. Ah, the joys of work in the Soviet Union. (Check out Enthusiasm by Dziga Vertov!) Yada yada...

Das Lied von der Erde / Klemperer / Wunderlich / Ludwig