Dearest dance lovers,
The air is alive with the whispers of silk, the rhythmic thud of pointe shoes on stage, and the heart-achingly beautiful music of a thousand dreams – we are about to embark on a journey into the world of ballet music!
19th May 2026, oh, what a date for this very special celebration. Today is a day to celebrate the enchanting and ethereal power of ballet music, a symphony of sound that brings to life the grace, passion and storytelling of a dance that’s as old as time, yet as eternally fresh as a dewy morning rose.
So let us raise our imaginary crystal-filled flutes – the very kind the Sugar Plum Fairy would dance to, you know – and take a deep, graceful breath into the heart of a world where musical masterpieces meet ethereal choreography. This, darlings, is a voyage for our souls!
To begin, we’ll slip into our ballet slippers, you know, those that make us feel like we’re pirouetting on clouds, and twirl into the first act.
We'll examine the classics.
From Tchaikovsky's hauntingly beautiful score for Swan Lake to the rousing, glorious sounds of The Nutcracker – the sheer drama of each musical note sets our hearts racing and our souls soaring.
Tchaikovsky himself understood how vital music is to ballet. Each crescendo, each tender whisper of string, every soaring motif, – the man wrote the score to every move. You wouldn’t find a single pas de deux without a fitting melody for it.
And, of course, how can we not adore the iconic sounds of the "Waltz of the Flowers"? Think of that dazzling floral symphony, with the lilting strains of wind instruments mimicking fluttering petals, a breathtakingly whimsical melody fit for fairies and flowers themselves.
Imagine yourself as Clara, swirling amongst those beautifully blossoming blooms, and feel the magic of the music weaving a spell. Each note seems to lift us higher, towards a realm where even the ordinary can bloom into something extraordinary, don't you agree?
Oh, how enchanting it is to imagine, in that delightful moment, how music, ballet, and magical tales merge into one single glorious experience!
This leads us to another very important facet – the new and upcoming talents that are truly reinventing how we hear ballet. The 21st Century is brimming with genius. We must delve into the innovative works of ballet composers such as the daringly inventive and whimsical Aaron Copland with his groundbreaking "Appalachian Spring", a composition so raw and beautiful it will steal your heart and take your breath away, or the haunting, deeply personal stories that unfold within the score of Stravinsky’s "Rite of Spring".
And let us not forget the legendary Diaghilev Ballets Russes, a revolutionary troupe that dared to reinterpret how ballet is composed and danced! Remember Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, a wild ballet that truly rocked the world in 1913, as much for its shocking dance routines as the discordant, driving musical accompaniment that gave a completely different dimension to ballet’s aesthetic. It felt like the ballet had exploded into the 20th century with wild, explosive music, all rhythmic power, and bold rhythms!
This is one of ballet’s most glorious and powerful stories, its refusal to simply settle in one style, the daring refusal to simply echo the past, but rather to boldly forge its own path, breaking down musical barriers and forever changing how we hear ballet.
Today, however, we must celebrate all that has come before, as we see this magnificent dance form continue to blossom in extraordinary ways.
To be a ballerina is more than being an athlete. A ballerina is a goddess – graceful, elegant and a master of every art form, a vessel of artistry and strength, who through movement takes us to another place entirely. Theirs is a body that is sculpted to harmonize perfectly with a score, bringing out the most vibrant life, every note, a whispered, then explosive, declaration of passion, a heart beating out every tempo, each breath in tune.
Let's face it – when you hear a delicate waltz in ballet music, don’t you simply want to glide and swirl through a silken moonlit forest, as the notes melt away your every sorrow and fill you with the sheer joy of simply existing?
You feel it in your soul, don’t you? The soul’s dance, responding to each melodic cue. Music is an inseparable part of this incredible form, weaving a magical tapestry of sound with the very language of motion. Ballet’s language is movement, its vocabulary – each breathtaking leap, chaque jeté and fouetté, the arabesque that whispers longing.
And yet it is music that gives life to these silent prayers. What would a delicate “arabesque” be without the achingly tender sweep of a string orchestra or a crescendo in the violin, mimicking that soaring extension of the leg? How would a "grand jeté" truly capture the essence of a flying, joyous leap without the accompanying, buoyant chords?
Let's journey now into the beauty and history of some of these famous scores that have touched the hearts of the world:
- Tchaikovsky, the true king of the dramatic ballet score.
- Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake – the haunting, ethereal opening music as we first encounter Odette. Such fragility, sorrow, beauty and power, just as Odette’s fate hangs by a thread, each melody drawing us in with such grace, such heartache. This is, simply put, some of the most poignant, stirring music of all time. The heart breaks along with Odette.
Then, there’s that rousing waltz, as Odile sweeps across the stage in her jet black tutu, as radiant and enigmatic as the midnight hour – that’s how truly potent Tchaikovsky was: capable of taking you through every shade of emotion! Oh, such theatrical skill in how the melodies are built to mirror what we’re seeing. It's no wonder these scores are used in opera houses and the movies still! There are those “signature Tchaikovsky moves,” and for those of you with a dancer’s soul, I’m sure you can already feel them in the way you imagine them – the notes echoing each turn, every arabesque. How can we not dance, how can we not swoon to such mastery of the dramatic, the romantic?
- The Nutcracker is another treasure that’s absolutely bursting with whimsical, child-like charm. Think of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Could that enchanting, mesmerizing role exist without its signature, dreamlike waltz? No! They belong together! The "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", a captivating ballet staple that continues to be cherished through the decades, and for good reason! It’s an iconic, timeless classic for its exquisite elegance. The "Waltz of the Flowers", of course! That exquisite musical melody, it evokes such a light-footed delicacy, as if the dance of those lovely floral creatures themselves is in every musical note. It is a triumph for ballet music.
- Giselle. Oh, what a score of heart-breaking beauty! Just one listening and we are pulled back into Giselle’s heartbreak – we are in love and heartbroken, in equal measure. The music pulls out our own personal grief, sorrow and the desire for hope and resilience. The score truly tells this captivating tale, not through speech or gesture but by pure musical expression.
- The choreography in Giselle perfectly meets each musical movement – just listen to that adagio for the “mad scene” as Giselle dances with the spectral Wilis. It’s chilling and hauntingly beautiful. A testament to the sheer magic of this match.
Now we must take a peek at the modern side.
Imagine a performance with the most cutting-edge scores of contemporary composers such as John Adams. He took classical music and spun it into his unique musical vision that redefined how we listen to music. Think of the way Adams re-interpreted the Baroque era, pushing his music further, to such a poignant emotional peak with his iconic “The Death of Klinghoffer", as moving and personal as it is controversial, giving the music a real, human heart and soul – a truly ground-breaking composer, no matter what side you stand on, as far as its message is concerned!
But let’s look more specifically to music as it serves ballet:
- For one of today’s hottest talents in composing, think of Joby Talbot – what a revolutionary innovator. He’s such a force of creativity, he completely revolutionized how we experience dance. This man is creating incredible, bold scores – from the theatrical and sophisticated to the profoundly personal. It’s worth remembering how “The Ballet” , Talbot’s unique score for “The Ballet" (it’s a “ballet within a ballet”), is an utterly delightful composition, filled with irony, wit, and that clever tendency to flip everything on its head. A perfect example is the scene where we have this utterly absurd moment where the music mirrors the dancers on stage in this perfectly synchronized pas de deux, it’s beautifully crafted and oh-so-humorous.
- Or there is Arvo Pärt, he writes what we could call the truly spiritual music of dance – with a real mystical undercurrent – think "The Tabula Rasa", with its extraordinary depth and unforgettable sound world. A truly immersive piece of work for all, whether dancers, audiences or simply lovers of good, moving music. This is ballet at its very best - a complete work of art, both musically and choreographically.
Oh, let’s take a deep dive into another part of dance history that many often overlook.
Ballet would never be complete without a strong jazz influence - such a huge, global trend in both music and dance that the world was ready for in the 20th century! This influence added an undeniable flair to contemporary ballet and transformed the entire genre forever.
Who would have thought that music that emerged from jazz nightclubs would go on to become the driving force behind dance studios the world over, yet here we are. It became, at the height of its fame, the absolute definition of how we understand “swinging”!
We’re now on a dance floor at some grand jazz ball, with those syncopated, thrilling beats. This is, my friends, where “swinging” has a whole new meaning.
It’s a vital, heart-racing pulse! And so many modern choreographers now embrace this heritage by incorporating elements into their contemporary productions, resulting in some dazzling interpretations of classic scores! It’s as if that “jazzy” influence is in its blood – and there is a wonderful fusion of classical scores blended with some amazing jazz harmonies that give it all a totally different flavour! Imagine that! Ballet can indeed be anything it wishes to be!
Think about the great choreographer George Balanchine, one of the founding fathers of modern American Ballet. How many classic dances owe their incredible movements to a strong, underlying jazz element, with the syncopated beat giving it a totally modern sensibility.
Now, let's step out of the ballet studio. Can’t you hear the dance in everything around you? That rhythm of your heartbeat, the lilt of laughter on a breezy summer day, and the soothing sounds of wind in the trees - it's all one big symphony that our souls just need to dance to. We just need to tune our minds to those exquisite musical frequencies! We could discuss the extraordinary talent that goes into composing for ballet, from the rhythmic structure to how the musical phrases relate to specific movement sequences – there is a genius in orchestrating movement in every score – but we need not dwell on this aspect as our love is for the sheer aesthetic beauty of what music does for dance! It’s how these music composers – the artists of the soul, if you will, have created these scores to make dance more expressive. How each beautiful crescendo allows a dancer to soar through space, and how the dramatic pauses create these amazing points of anticipation. Music really has made all the difference. As we raise our flutes once again, filled with crystal-clear bubbles, let's raise a toast to these great musicians of the world! Thank you to all the brilliant minds who have allowed dance to flourish.
Now for an outfit that would be perfect for a balletic symphony of music and dance! How about a sparkling blush pink tutu, of the most exquisite kind. Picture, dear readers, that fine fabric flowing as it embraces every move with such gentle, airy ease. A pale rose ballet-inspired leotard, its bodice embellished with a delicate smattering of sequins. A gentle dusting of a pearl pink lipstick, matching those ballerina slippers - such perfect symmetry! The ensemble for your musical journey!