What makes a great ballet score? Often, there\u2019s a lot more to consider than in a standard symphony. It needs to tell a clear story, highlight the differences between characters and provide an accompaniment \u2013 or even a partner \u2013 to the dancers on stage. But it also needs to be able to stand alone, to exist and thrive as its own entity. The musical language needs to be rich and colourful enough that we can hear the story unfold without needing visual prompts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
Six of the best\u2026 American ballets<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
Best ballet music of all time<\/strong><\/h2>\nTchaikovsky\u2019s Swan Lake<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nIs Swan Lake<\/em><\/strong><\/a> ballet\u2019s greatest love story? There\u2019s a good case to be made for it. The tragic tale begins with Prince Siegfried finding a beautiful swan, which transforms into Princess Odette. She explains that she has been turned into a swan by the evil Baron Von Rothbart and that the spell can only be broken if someone who has never loved before swears an oath of undying love to her \u2013 which, naturally, the prince does instantly. Later at the palace, Odette enters and Siegfried dances with her and asks for her hand in marriage. But it\u2019s not Odette \u2013 it\u2019s Odile in disguise, the black swan and daughter of Von Rothbart. Siegfried goes to the lake to find Odette, but there is nothing to be done now that he has broken the vow. They decide to throw themselves into the lake and die together.<\/p>\n\nBased on stories from Russian and German folk tales, the plot of Swan Lake <\/em>is impactful enough \u2013 before you even consider Tchaikovksy\u2019s glittering, timeless score. It\u2019s truly symphonic, and has created some of the most iconic moments in the history of dance. The \u2018Dance of the Cygnets\u2019 is instantly recognisable, as the four dancers move together in perfect unison with the music, which sees the melody passed seamlessly between strings and wind instruments. It\u2019s one of the greatest marriages of choreography and music.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nWe named <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky\/"\">Tchaikovsky<\/a> <\/strong>as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Prokofiev\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nIn 1935, <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/sergey-prokofiev\/"\">Prokofiev<\/a><\/strong> moved to the Soviet Union to chase a lucrative offer \u2013 to write any opera or ballet he wanted. The story of Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet <\/em>was his choice. He saw this ballet as his homecoming, wanting to arrive with a bang \u2013 and, hopefully, to dethrone the Soviet Union\u2019s current darling,<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/dmitri-shostakovich\/"\"> Shostakovich<\/a><\/strong>. Unfortunately, logistical issues and a change in personnel (the Bolshoi\u2019s leader Vladimir Mutnikh was arrested in Stalin\u2019s Great Purge) meant the ballet was forced to be postponed. Despite these challenges and several rejections from ballet companies, Romeo and Juliet<\/em> was later adapted into three orchestral suits and 10 piano pieces, which reached the public sooner than the ballet itself and have retained a hugely popular status among classical music lovers.<\/p>\nProkofiev\u2019s hand is felt throughout the score of Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, with various motifs borrowed from his other symphonies.<\/p>\nWe named Prokofiev as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul><li><a class=\""standard-card-new__article-title"\" href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/romeo-and-juliet-music\/"\">Six of the best: musical settings of Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Stravinsky\u2019s The Rite of Spring<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nTo this day, there\u2019s not a music student in the land that hasn\u2019t heard the story of the raucous premiere of Stravinsky\u2019s <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/stravinskys-rite-spring-guide-and-best-recordings\/"\">The Rite of Spring<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em> Headlines reading \u2018The Riot at the Rite\u2019 are ten a penny. Audiences were just not prepared for the violent, elemental work, which was nothing like anything that had come before it.<\/p>\nBesides the raucous audience reception, the ballet\u2019s story is dark. Stravinsky describes how the concept for the ballet first came to him: \u2018I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring.\u2019 Stravinsky wrote it for Serge Diaghilev\u2019s Ballet Russes, a troupe of dancers with whom he had a longstanding collaboration.<\/p>\nThe score is spiky, accented and disturbing. Although the music, imagery and culture we have been exposed to since The Rite of Spring<\/em>\u2019s premiere should have taken the edge off it, Stravinsky\u2019s score sounds just as groundbreaking today as it did then. Instruments are pushed to their limits, playing in extreme registers, balancing hard accents and complex jagged rhythms \u2013 and that\u2019s before you even take in the voodoo-like choreography slicing up the stage.<\/p>\nWe named <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/igor-stravinsky\/"\">Stravinsky<\/a><\/strong> as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul><li><a class=\""standard-card-new__article-title"\" href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/stravinskys-ballets-a-guide-to-all-his-masterpieces\/"\">Stravinsky\u2019s ballets: a guide to all his masterpieces<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Adolphe Adam\u2019s Giselle<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nGiselle <\/em>might be one of the more technically challenging ballets for dancers themselves, but its continual outings suggest that it remains as popular as ever with audiences.<\/p>\nThe ballet pivots around the eponymous character of Giselle, a beautiful peasant girl who falls for the nobleman Albrecht, who hides his identity to appear as a villager to try and romance Giselle. Upon discovering Albrecht\u2019s disguise, Giselle dies of heartbreak. While the first act centres around this complicated dynamic, the second act is dominated by the ethereal Wilis \u2013 a group of spirits of maidens who died after having been betrayed by their lovers. They summon Giselle to join them in taking revenge on the men who have wrong them, forcing them to dance to death. Her love for Albrecht frees him from their grasp \u2013 and saves her from becoming one of them. It\u2019s a classic romantic \u2013 and Romantic \u2013 ballet.<\/p>\n<iframe title=\""Adolphe\" adam:=\"\" giselle=\"\" width=\""200"\" height=\""113"\" src=\""https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hzuDO7fkQu0?feature=oembed"\" frameborder=\""0"\" allow=\""accelerometer;\" autoplay=\"\" clipboard-write=\"\" encrypted-media=\"\" gyroscope=\"\" picture-in-picture=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/>\nLike every good ballet, Adolphe Adam\u2019s score is packed full of familiar<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-is-a-leitmotif\/"\"> leitmotif<\/a><\/strong>s, which return time and time again to remind us of the various characters, plot points or emotive threads. As Giselle and Albrecht\u2019s relationship is blossoming, motifs are tossed back and forth between the woodwinds as though the instruments are chatting among one another, just as the protagonists are doing on stage. The score is written in a <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/what-bel-canto\/"\">bel canto <\/em><\/a><\/strong>style, with plenty of hummable lines and references to European styles of dance music, such as waltzes and polkas.<\/p>\nWe named <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/adolphe-adam\/"\">Adolphe Adam<\/a> <\/strong>as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Tchaikovsky\u2019s The Nutcracker<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nPartway through the compositional process of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/a-guide-to-tchaikovskys-the-nutcracker\/"\">The Nutcracker<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, Tchaikovsky\u2019s sister Alexandra died, leaving him bereft and unable to go on. \u2018I feel absolutely incapable of depicting the Kingdom of Sweets in music,\u2019 he wrote. But clearly it didn\u2019t leave him paralysed for too long, as he went on to produce one of his greatest works \u2013 and, arguably, the sound of Christmas. The pit is transformed into an orchestra of toy instruments, with the celeste taking centre stage in the now iconic \u2018Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy\u2019. The instrument was relatively unknown in Russia when the ballet was first premiered, and Tchaikovsky had imported it with absolute secrecy to save its impact for opening night. Clearly it was a secret worth keeping, and these days you can hardly move in the film music world without bumping into the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/discover-sound-sugar-plum-fairy\/"\">celesta<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\nLike many of the ballets featured in this list, The Nutcracker <\/em>takes its lead from fairytales. In this case, the libretto is adapted from ETA Hoffmann\u2019s 1816 short story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. <\/em>Clara is given a nutcracker for her Christmas present, and as she falls asleep and starts to dream, the nutcracker brings her into a dream world in which he fights with the mouse king. The nutcracker then turns into a prince and takes Clara into the Land of Snow, where they are met with dancing snowflakes, and the Land of Sweets, where they are introduced to the Sugar Plum Fairy. It\u2019s a fantastical story of a child\u2019s vivid imagination, with all the colour \u2013 both visually and musically \u2013 you could wish for.<\/p>\nPlus, <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/nine-unexpected-uses-tchaikovskys-nutcracker\/"\">The Nutcracker <\/em><\/strong>is one of the ballets that has cropped up in endless pop culture references<\/strong><\/a>, from The Simpson\u2019s Christmas Stories <\/em>to Fantasia<\/em>, even with Duke Ellington creating his own Nutcracker Suite. <\/em><\/p>\nSome would argue \u2013 myself included \u2013 that the mark of any great ballet is that it has been adapted into a Barbie <\/em>film, which is the case for both Swan Lake <\/em>and The Nutcracker.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\nWe named Tchaikovsky as one of the<\/strong> <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time <\/strong><\/a>and The Nutcracker<\/em> as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/best-christmas-ballets\/"\">best Christmas ballets ever<\/a> \u2013 and a must watch for the festive season<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Stravinsky\u2019s The Firebird<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nStravinsky cemented his reputation with this colourful ballet, written when the composer was just 28 years old. Taken on by choreographer Sergei Diaghilev as a relative novice, Stravinsky\u2019s score for <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/stravinskys-firebird\/"\">The Firebird <\/em><\/a><\/strong>launched him onto the scene. His plan was to make the ballet as Russian as possible, combining famous figures from a handful of different Russian fairytales, using folk melodies to represent the ballet\u2019s various characters. The Firebird is just one of these characters, its arrival symbolised by a blistering <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/discovering-music-crescendo\/"\">crescendo<\/a><\/strong> through the orchestra. Its legend is at the centre of the story, a create whose feathers protect the earth with their beauty.<\/p>\nWe are plunged into a fantasy world in which Prince Ivan Tsarevich \u2013 another figure from Russian folklore \u2013 must save his princess from the evil sorcerer Kashchei, with the intervention of the Firebird. Despite Shostakovich\u2019s relatively novice status at the time of writing, The Firebird <\/em>set the tone of his ballets to come. The characters of Russian folklore come to life against a backdrop of atmospheric, otherworldly Russian folk melodies.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nWe named Stravinsky as one of the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-best-ballet-composers-of-all-time\/"\">best ballet composers of all time<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Kaija Saariaho\u2019s Maa<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nWe\u2019re all now very familiar with the genius of Kaija Saariaho\u2019s works for stage, thanks to the enormous success of her operas. Many don\u2019t know that her stage career actually began with a ballet.<\/p>\n<iframe title=\""MAA:\" a=\"\" ballet=\"\" by=\"\" kaija=\"\" saariaho=\"\" width=\""200"\" height=\""150"\" src=\""https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rIJUzcb4ArA?feature=oembed"\" frameborder=\""0"\" allow=\""accelerometer;\" autoplay=\"\" clipboard-write=\"\" encrypted-media=\"\" gyroscope=\"\" picture-in-picture=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/>\nFirst performed by the Finnish National Ballet in 1991, Maa <\/em>has an abstract, non-narrative plot, with dancers responding to the immediacy of Saariaho\u2019s raw musical material. Translating from the Finnish for \u2018earth\u2019, \u2018Maa<\/em>\u2019 brought the composer back to her homeland after studying and working in other parts of Europe.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nThe number seven plays a key role, with seven musicians playing seven movements, which each break down into seven subsections. She blends electronic textures and tape manipulation with organic instrumental and natural sounds such as footsteps, wind and water. \u2018At that time, I was working a lot with the idea of metamorphosis,\u2019 Saariaho told the Irish Times <\/em>in 2013. \u2018So it became a thematic thing: crossing the space, opening the door, two sides of the windows, different spaces.\u2019<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nSaariaho\u2019s carefully planned musical structures provided a jumping-off point for choreographer Carolyn Carlson, whose methods pivoted around improvisation. Within the score, musicians are asked to perform technically challenging passages, using extended technique to explore the full potential of their instruments.<\/p>\nWe named Kaija Saariaho one of the<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/the-greatest-opera-composers-of-all-time\/"\"> best opera composers of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul><li><a class=\""standard-card-new__article-title"\" href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/kaija-saariaho-best-works\/"\">Kaija Saariaho: Six of her best works<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Max Richter\u2019s Woolf Works<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nAnother contemporary offering from Wayne McGregor and the Royal Ballet, Woolf Works <\/em>was a ballet triptych inspired by the writings of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/musical-life-virginia-woolf\/"\">Virginia Woolf<\/a><\/strong>, set to an original score by Max Richter. Themes and emotions from three of Woolf\u2019s novels are used as the inspiration for the three ballets, Mrs Dalloway<\/em>, Orlando <\/em>and The Waves<\/em>, with fragments from her letters and diaries interwoven throughout, voiced by actor Gillian Anderson. Like much of Richter\u2019s work, the score blended orchestral and electronic textures.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nThe ballet explores Woolf\u2019s biography in tandem with an examination of society at the time. The score was later released as an album by Richter on Deutsche Grammophon, titled Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Multiverse<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nWayne McGregor conceived new work titled Multiverse<\/em>, set to original scores by Steve Reich: It\u2019s Gonna Rain<\/em> and Runner<\/em>, both of which come in at around 15 to 20 mins each. It\u2019s Gonna Rain <\/em>is a word-based tape work (1965), juxtaposed with a newly commissioned score Runner<\/em>, which is an intense composition for strings, piano, wind and percussion, written without a break between its five movements. While the tempo remains the same, each movement is based on different note duration, meaning that the pace ebbs and flows.\u00a0 It received its world premiere by the Royal Ballet in 2016. Reich\u2019s experimentations with phasing and repetition are highly adaptable for the dance stage, something McGregor was keen to convey. The project as a whole was designed to reflect the geopolitical crisis of the time, with Reich\u2019s score representing our repeating histories and the unstable present.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\nWayne McGregor is no stranger to classical music, having collaborated with a raft of contemporary composers such as Nico Muhly, , \u00d3lafur Arnalds, Michael Gordon, Jon Hopkins, Jamie xx and Michael Berkeley on projects. He\u2019s also set new dance works to existing works from the core classical repertoire, such as <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/johann-sebastian-bach\/"\">JS Bach<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s The Art of Fugue<\/em>, which was used for the basis of his 2018 production Bach Forms. <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Freya Parr Published: Wednesday, 01 June 2022 at 12:00 am What makes a great ballet score? Often, there\u2019s a lot more to consider than in a standard symphony. It needs to tell a clear story, highlight the differences between characters and provide an accompaniment \u2013 or even a partner \u2013 to the dancers on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":15877,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"10"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time.jpg",1890,1264,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time-300x201.jpg",300,201,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time-768x514.jpg",768,514,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time-1024x685.jpg",800,535,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time-1536x1027.jpg",1536,1027,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/06\/best-ballet-music-the-finest-ballet-scores-of-all-time.jpg",1890,1264,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Freya Parr Published: Wednesday, 01 June 2022 at 12:00 am What makes a great ballet score? Often, there\u2019s a lot more to consider than in a standard symphony. 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