Ballet Music
• Ballet music in general is a musical composition that
is meant for ballet performance.
• Until the 19th century, the music in a ballet was not
considered as important as the dance.
• It began to progress from simply a complement to the
dancing to a recognised classical form of
composition.
• Ballet music was also not always part of the ballet.
• Renaissance time saw dancers perform without ballet
music- the emphasis was on the dancing rather than
the choreography.
• 17th century started this change due to Jean Baptise
Lully.
• He created the first music to tell a story with the
dance.
• Lully and fellow composer Rameau are also credited
with creating the opera ballet, which was a singing
and dancing opera….. much like what our musicals
of today probably originated from.
• In the very early 19th century the major change to
ballet came because of the first real ballet shoe.
• Before this people used hard shoes.
• This is where to dance en pointe began.
• The invention of this ballet shoe created the
opportunity to create more expressive music
• This allowed for the dancers to become more
graceful and free in their movements and led to the
lifting and more daring dancing we recognise as
ballet in our era.
Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky – 1840 – 1893
• As ballet music progressed, classical music
composers who had previously only composed
symphonies started to branch into ballet music.
• Up until this point, there was a hierarchy between the
masters of orchestral music who wrote for
symphonies etc and the craftsman who wrote ballet
music.
• Tchaikovsky- a Russian composers, was one of the
first classical composers to write for the ballet.
• He is credited as having the first real ballet music
score in Swan Lake composed by a symphonic
composer.
• He had a wide and varied style, which allowed him to
have much freedom in his ballet music compositions.
• Interestingly, Tchaikovsky felt that composing ballet
music was beneath him when he began doing it.
• Of note, is Maurice Petipa, a famous French
choreographer who worked with Tchaikovsky and
Pugni to create complex music, dance ballet
masterpieces.
• There was a violent change in mood when Igor
Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring (1913) was
performed. The music was modernist and dissonant
and the movements were highly stylized.
• 1924’s Ballet Mecanique, a film of moving objects –
not for dancers was the beginning use of jazz music.
• This point then historically had dance music split into
two directions, - modern and jazz dance.
• Swan Lake
• Finale Act I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI7AsZGnyi4
Finale Act IV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHbPgOahr2I
Swan Lake Ballet - Synopsis
http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/balletsynopses/a/swanlak
estory.htm
• Composition synopsis
• http://www.allmusic.com/composition/the-swan-lake-balletop-20-mc0002371487
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The Rite of Spring- Stravinsky
Rite of Spring synopsis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/stravinsky/guides/storybehind-rite-spring/
Rite of Spring orchestral only video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1q6u3mLSM
Rite of Spring Finale Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7pV2cX0qxs