Introducing composer Ludwig Minkus

In some ways, I think Ludwig Minkus is the ultimate ballet composer. His music is absolutely perfect for classical ballet. Minkus understood exactly what choreographer Marius Petipa* wanted. Everything in the music is highly danceable, rhythmical and lively, or tender where it needs to be, particularly in the pas de deux. He simply knew how to write for dancers.

It’s also worth remembering that Minkus came before Tchaikovsky. Early on, choreographers struggled with Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores because they were too symphonic; now, of course, we worship them. But in the 19th century, choreographers were used to composers like Minkus, Drigo and Pugni – people who wrote music that worked for ballet...

Minkus is a fascinating figure in ballet music history. In many ways he laid the groundwork for dramatic interpretation in ballet scores, something that was later taken up by Tchaikovsky and others. He sits rather uncomfortably in the middle of that evolution. Don Quixote is really his masterwork, where everything comes together, but La Bayadère is something quite different. It’s a real melting pot of styles.

A lot of the music was written very quickly, very practically. I often describe it as ’books by the yard’. There are moments where themes connect characters, but much of it was created to meet immediate choreographic needs: a boys’ variation in a particular key, a set number of bars, written and delivered almost instantly. I know some scholars bristle at that idea, but I’ve seen the manuscripts. You can tell how fast this music was produced...