Great ballet is inseparable from great music. The score does not merely accompany the steps; it shapes the phrasing, dictates the breath, and supplies the emotional current that carries a performance from the wings to the final curtain. For dancers and choreographers, knowing these foundational scores inside and out is as essential as mastering turnout or pointe work.
Below are five canonical ballet scores that continue to define the art form, with practical notes on what makes each one distinctive—and how to work with them.
1. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (1877)
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake established the symphonic ballet score as we know it. Before this, ballet music was largely a functional backdrop; Tchaikovsky treated it as serious concert music, weaving leitmotifs that transform and develop across four acts.
Listen for: The Swan Theme in Act II, a B-minor melody introduced by solo oboe and passed through the strings. It returns throughout the ballet in altered forms, mirroring Odette's shifting fate.
For dancers: This score is essential for developing sustained adagio control and emotional projection. The long, breathing phrases demand seamless port de bras and unhurried épaulement. Rushing the music is a common pitfall; the swan imagery depends on stillness within motion.
2. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (1913)
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring caused a literal riot at its Paris premiere, and its dissonant harmonies and jagged, asymmetrical rhythms still sound radical over a century later. The score dismantles the elegant flow of 19th-century ballet in favor of something raw, percussive, and ritualistic.
Listen for: The "Dance of the Adolescents" (Part I), where pounding orchestral chords collide with off-kilter accents in unpredictable meters.
For dancers and choreographers: This is the go-to score for exploring athleticism, group dynamics, and anti-classical movement. The irregular time signatures force dancers to abandon comfortable counts and develop acute rhythmic literacy. It remains a benchmark for choreographers looking to push physical and narrative boundaries.
3. Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (1935)
Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet revived the full-length dramatic ballet in the 20th century with a score of remarkable cinematic scope. Prokofiev's gift for character-driven themes—each faction, each lover, each violent clash given its own sonic signature—makes the storytelling almost wordlessly precise.
Listen for: "The Dance of the Knights" (Act I), a heavy, menacing march that has become synonymous with the Capulet family and is now one of the most recognizable pieces of ballet music in the world.
For dancers: This score teaches dramatic contrast and character immersion. The music shifts from tender intimacy to public violence in seconds; dancers must match that range, moving from private pas de deux tone to full-bodied ensemble attack without losing narrative clarity.
4. Delibes: Coppélia (1870)
Not every performance demands tragedy. Léo Delibes's Coppélia is a comic, intimate ballet whose score offers a masterclass in musical characterization and national color. Delibes was among the first ballet composers to write melodies that felt genuinely folk-inspired rather than decorative, and his use of recurring mechanical motifs for the doll Coppélia adds a layer of wit rare in the repertoire.
Listen for: The "Music of the Automatons" in Act I, where stiff, clockwork rhythms in the orchestra signal to the audience (but not the hapless hero Franz) that Coppélia is not quite human.
For dancers: This ballet is invaluable for building comedic timing, ensemble precision, and character dancing. The mazurka and czárdás require crisp footwork and stylistic authenticity, while the mechanical passages demand exact synchronization with the beat—there is no room for romantic rubato here.
5. Adam: Giselle (1841)
Adolphe Adam's Giselle sits at the heart of the Romantic ballet tradition. The score is both delicate and haunted, tracing a young woman's journey from rural innocence to spectral vengeance and, finally, to redemptive forgiveness.
Listen for: The Giselle theme in Act I, a plaintive melody for solo violin that returns transformed in Act II as Giselle's Wilis dance. The shift from major to minor, from earth to afterlife, is carried almost entirely by the orchestration
