Minor Ballet Composers: Biographical Sketches of Sixty‐six Underappreciated Yet Significant Contributors to the Body of Western Ballet Music

The title page tells us that the book was conceived and edited by William E. Studwell who has also made contributions to it; the publicity slip explains that it is a monograph published simultaneously as Music Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 5 Nos. 3/4. The introduction, beginning “Ballet is a curious art”, tells us that it tells a story without words; but so do many paintings and tone poems, though of course not with dance and gesture. I have several times heard it said that the best ballets have the poorest music ‐ manifestly untrue if you think no further...