When you watch a ballet performance, it can be easy to take the music
for granted and focus on the skill of the dancer. Sometimes the music
gets overlooked. In fact, there is a whole genre of music called Ballet
Music. It is specifically designed to be danced to. Prior to the huge
popularity of ballet, regular ballroom dance music was used. However, as
it grew in popularity and became more standardized, the music too
became standardized. So while you might not have known that some music
exists specifically for ballet, you can still find out about some great
composers and enjoy their music.
John Weaver was a ballet composer considered to be a specialist in
creating music specifically to dance to. He was one of the pioneers in
that area, and started trying to compose music that told a specific
story. In ballet music, there are usually certain characters established
by the music, and their traits can be seen repeated through different
notes and tones. For example, someone might be dancing quickly and
intensely as the music sounds aggressive. This would indicate that the
character is aggressive. Sometimes the stories would even be sung in
word form, though this is not a particularly popular method anymore.
