Following the huge success of the previous release of outstanding ballet product, including the magnificent 50 CD box set A FESTIVAL OF BALLET, the ten BALLET EDITION albums and I LOVE BALLET, EMI Classics presents a further eight albums of ballet music.

These 2CD mid-price sets, drawn from the catalogues of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics, present a selection of the best-loved and most popular ballet music by the great composers, performed by the world’s leading artists.

This album brings together four delightful ballets that sum up all the qualities that people associate with France and particularly Paris, namely gaiety, sophistication, romantic love and joi-de-vivre. Gaiety abounds in Offenbach’s frothy music that the conductor Manuel Rosenthal arranged for Leonide Massine’s ballet Gaîté Parisienne. Poulenc’s score for Les Biches perfectly encapsulates the mood and spirit of the madcap 1920s in France, and Messager’s charming music for The Two Pigeons paints a glowing picture of young love in the studio of a Parisian artist. The final ballet, Les Patineurs uses music by the French operatic composer Meyerbeer as a vehicle for Frederick Ashton’s light-hearted evocation of fun and games on the ice of a frozen pond in winter.