How ballets are born
Ballets come into existence in two ways:
- a composer specifically writes orchestral music intended for ballet (eg Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake). It is then choreographed by a famous choreographer and this version becomes the standard version performed
- the ballet impresario (or “artistic director”) of a ballet company will pick some ready-made music. If it’s not in orchestral form he will commission a composer to arrange the music for orchestra. Then he will get it choreographed and written up in special notation for the dancers to follow. Because ballet lovers are as interested in the visual display as in the music itself, one sometimes has to do some digging to work out what music has actually been used, since it is not always immediately apparent in the programme notes!
Russian dominance
Ballet, at least as we know today, was originally Russian and the most famous ballet companies are still the Bolshoi and the Kirov, and the greatest ballerina of all time Rudolf Nureyev. Nureyev started off at the Kirov, and later directed the Paris Opéra ballet for a while. The Ginger Rogers of the ballet world to Nureyev’s Fred Astaire was Margot Fonteyn, an English ballerina who danced for the Royal Ballet (Covent Garden).
One of the most famous ballet impresarios was the larger-than-life Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) with his company “Ballets Russes” and his collaborations with Stravinsky.
And one of the most famous choreographers of the 20th century was the Russian George Balanchine.
In the world of ballet, the name of the choreographer is more important than that of the composer!
Classical and Modern ballet
“Classical” ballet is usually the style employed for the classic ballets like “Swan Lake” or “Sleeping Beauty”. The standard moves include the “entrechat” (dancer jumps in the air and crosses his feet), the “pirouette” (turns), the “pointe” (standing on the tip of the toe), the “tour en l’air” (mainly men – jumping with a single, double or even triple turn) and the “arabesque” (a pose on one leg with the other leg raised back, the body and arms forming a straight line). The “Modern” ballet style on the other hand is jazzier and more adventurous.
Choreographers
Here are some of the major names, with the composer of the music in brackets:
19th Century
- Ivanov – Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky), some scenes from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky)
- Pepita – Don Quixote (Minkus), La Bayadere (Minkus), Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky), the other scenes from Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky), Raymonda (Glazunov)
20th Century
- Fokine – Les Sylphides (Chopin), Le Spectre de la Rose (Weber, orchestrated by Berlioz), Petrouchka (Stravinsky)
- Nijinsky – L’Après-midi d’un Faune (Debussy), Le Sacre du Printemps (Stravinsky)
- Nijinska – Les Noces (Stravinsky), Les Biches (Poulenc)
- Cranko – Pineapple Poll (Sullivan), Onegin (Tchaikovsky but not the opera, rather some of Tchaikovsky’s piano music including “The Seasons”)
- Massine – ballet Parade (Satie; cubist décor and costumes by Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Diaghilev’s ballerinas)
- La Boutique Fantasque (Rossini)
- Balanchine – Square dance, Apollo (Stravinsky), Serenade (Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C), Jewels made up of Emeralds (Fauré), Rubies (Stravinsky) and Diamonds (Tchaikovsky’s third symphony minus the first movement), “Theme and variations” (Tchaikovsky’s suite no. 3 for orchestra), “Ballet Imperial” (Tchaikovsky’s 2nd piano concerto), Four Temperaments (Hindemith)
- Ashton – Cinderella, Façade (based on Walton’s façade), Symphonic Variations (César Franck), Ondine (Hans Werner Henze), La Fille Mal Gardée, The Dream (Mendelssohn)
- MacMillan – The Invitation, Anastasia (Martinu, Tchaikovsky symphonies 1 & 3), Manon (Massenet but not from Manon the opera), Elite Syncopations
- Robbins – Afternoon of a Faun (Debussy), Dances at a Gathering (Chopin); Robbins also choreographed the musical “West Side Story” in 1957
- Béjart (born 1922) – Ninth Symphony (Beethoven), Boléro (Ravel)
The greatest ballet composers
The music is usually very much in the service of the dance, spectacle and rather unsubtle mime. And much of it is sweetness and delicacy, but half way through a long evening at the ballet after yet another ball is underway and one is starting to lose the will to live, one is tempted to curse the day the waltz was invented.
In terms of music written for the ballet, Tchaikovsky is exceptional, but most other music specifically written for ballet doesn’t really stand up to listening by itself until we get to Stravinsky. By composer, after the ballets of Tchaikovsky (“Swan Lake”, “Sleeping beauty”, “Nutcracker”), we shouldn’t forget the very famous little ballet movement “The Dance of the Hours” from Ponchielli (1834-86), as part of his otherwise uninteresting opera “La Gioconda”, which is often worked into ballet programmes. Then there’s the St Petersburg based Minkus (1826-1917) (“Don Quixote”, “La Bayadere”) and the Parisian Léo Delibes (1836-1891) (“La Source” – which he co-wrote with Minkus, “Coppélia” and “Sylvia”).
And then into the twentieth century with Stravinsky’s “Firebird”, “Petrushka”, “Rite of Spring”, “Pulcinella”; Prokofiev’s “Romeo & Juliet”, “Cinderella”; Ravel “Daphnis & Chloe”; Debussy’s “Jeux” and Strauss’s “Josephslegende”.