The music on this album reflects the rich tradition of Russian ballet, from 19th-century classics such as Swan Lake to the innovations of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the ballets of the Soviet era. While ballet music had long been treated as little more than functional accompaniment, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky transformed the genre by giving it symphonic scale and psychological depth. “Ballet is a symphony in its own right,” he declared, and after him ballet scores became true concert works, inspiring generations of leading Russian and European composers. Recorded at the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic, this album brings together a century of Russian ballet music in performances by the Ural Youth Symphony Orchestra under Dmitry Filatov.