Ludwig Minkus

Ludwig Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violinist and a teacher, born in Vienna in 1826 and best known for the scores he wrote in Russia. After early violin study and a short post at the Vienna Court Opera he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1853, later led orchestras at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and from 1871 to 1886 held the official post of composer of ballet music to the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres. His collaborations with the ballet masters Arthur Saint-Leon and Marius Petipa produced Don Quixote in 1869 and La Bayadere in 1877, both still performed, and he wrote the first and third parts of La Source with Leo Delibes. He retired to Vienna in 1891, lost his Russian pension in the First World War, and died there in poverty in December 1917.