You think ballet, you think Tchaikovsky. It’s remarkable, then, that when Swan Lake was premiered in 1877, the reception it garnered was lukewarm at best. Prokofiev captures the feuding Montagues and the Capulets alongside the ‘star-crossed’ love of Romeo and Juliet. He takes aim to shoot, but the swan turns into a beautiful woman named Odette. Ballet and Dance in Music & Composers from balletcompanies.com and dancecompanies.net Music & Composers. An Austrian composer of the Classical period, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers of Western music. It is full of charm and fun. We provide you with the latest breaking news and videos straight from the music industry.Justin Wildridge is a media composer and multi-instrumentalist based in South-West of England where he works from his own studio. He is the only composer to write and excel in all of the musical genres of his time. The celeste has a luminous and gently metallic timbre that Tchaikovsky uses sensitively to depict the ‘sugar plum fairy’, a tune that has become synonymous with the composer. Ludwig Minkus (Russian: Людвиг Минкус), also known as Léon Fyodorovich Minkus (23 March 1826 – 7 December 1917), was a Jewish-Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.. Minkus is noted for the music he composed while serving as the official Composer of Ballet Music to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres in Russia. It is in two acts. In the old days of ballet, the dance was the only important thing. Sadly, Tchaikovsky did not live long enough to revel in the immense success of this ballet that is often performed to a capacity audience around the time of Christmas.A little like the Cinderella story, Coppelia is a ballet that appeals to all ages.

Like so many aspects of Tchaikovsky’s life, this ballet did not meet with great initial success.The choreography was apparently weak at the premiere and the critics were full of harsh words for Tchaikovsky’s score. Coppelia is set in three acts, each lasting approximately thirty minutes making it more accessible to younger fans of the ballet. She tells the prince that she is a princess who has come under the spell of an evil sorcerer. It is in two acts.Tchaikovsky composed the score in 1892. Over the four acts of the ballet, Tchaikovsky writes some of the most memorable and delightful music of all his works especially ‘The Dance of the Cygnets’, in Act One.For the final ballet, we return to Russia and the astonishing work of the neo-classicist, Stravinsky. The princess forgives him and they decide to throw themselves into the lake to be united in death forever. People credit him with having a wide range of music that he created. Similar to the Nutcracker, first performances of this wonderful ballet were met with poor reviews even though the work has now become firmly established amongst the most performed and adored ballets ever composed.The story has its origins in German and Russian folk tales, possibly from a Johann Mausäus text titled ‘The Stolen Veil’. Classical Music Notation: It’s Only an ApproximationMusical considerations such as drama, pacing, and even beauty of sound were secondary to the spectacle of the dance: young men and women with great legs. The popular classical ballet tells the tale of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. These scores can be difficult to follow unless you understand what the “action music” between the expressive dances is describing. It tells the story of a young girl who befriends the nutcracker that magically comes to life on the eve of Christmas. As ballet music progressed, classical music composers who had only composed symphonies began to compose full ballets. As you listen to a ‘The Firebird’ is a story similar in some ways to Swan Lake but instead of a swan, there is a magical firebird that Prince Ivan manages to capture from the garden of the evil magician, Kostcheï. The Russian composer was the 19th century’s true master of dance music.