Music that sounds like ballet scores

[alison]

I was listening to Radio 3 this afternoon when they played Rossini's Overture to Semiramide, which kept sounding to me as though it wanted to turn into Lovenskjold's (bet I haven't spelt that properly) score for La Sylphide: I kept expecting to see kilted Scotsmen flying across the stage!

 

Have you ever encountered a piece of music which strongly reminded you of an existing ballet score? (as opposed to one you think would make a good ballet score, but hasn't thus far).

[zxDaveM]

bits of Mahler's 9th Symphony reminded me of snippets (voiceless bits) of 'Song of the Earth.

And lots of Prokoviev reminds me of either Cinderella or R&J.

 

Though I never know which came first and so which borrowed from what...

[alison]

There are lots of Prokofiev symphonies that remind me of Cinderella - 5-7, but I can never remember which, and whether he's actually quoting from Cinderella or they're just similar, or whether he wrote the symphonies first anyway - he always was very good at recycling .  Talking of which, he reuses a whole movement, I think, from the Classical Symphony in R&J.

 

And yes, I heard some bit of Mahler recently which definitely evoked Song of the Earth - although that's not a purpose-composed ballet score.

[pianolady]

Yes, I agree about Prokofiev- and a couple of bits of his piano suite Visions Fugitives sound like Romeo and Juliet. Tchaikovsky Neopolitan Song for the Album for the Young for piano is the same as the Neopolitan Dance in Swan Lake.