Ludwig Minkus

Vienna-born and Russian by career, Minkus held the post of Composer of Ballet Music to the Imperial Theatres and wrote ballet scores. He began as a violinist, trained in Vienna, and worked there and in Paris before working in Saint Petersburg and Moscow as performer, conductor and composer. Arthur Saint-Léon came first, then Marius Petipa, with whom he made Don Quixote in 1869 and La Bayadère in 1877; he also wrote additions to Paquita. He returned to Vienna in the 1890s and died there in 1917. He made his first public appearance as a violinist at eight and was appointed concertmaster of the Vienna Court Opera in 1852, leaving a year later for Russia and the orchestra of Prince Nikolai Yusupov, and he later became concertmaster of the Bolshoi orchestra in Moscow and conductor of the Italian opera in the same theatre. He held the post of ballet composer at the Bolshoi and taught violin at the newly founded Moscow Conservatory. Among the twenty-odd ballets he left are Roxana, Camargo, Les Papillons and The Brigands.