Les Sylphides

• Les Sylphides (The Sylphs) is a plotless ballet (subtitled a “romantic reverie”)¹ set to pieces by Chopin. Alexander Glazunov created the original Chopin orchestrations,² partly from his Chopiniana op. 46 (1893).³
  • Some later productions used different orchestrations of the same Chopin pieces, including versions by Benjamin Britten⁴ and Roy Douglas (see below).
• The ballet was created by Russian choreographer Michel Fokine (1880-1842) in 1909 for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Fokine also choreographed two Stravinsky ballets for the Ballets Russes: The Firebird and Petrushka.⁵
  • An early version of Les Sylphides was produced under the title Chopinana in 1907.⁶
• In one of our library’s recordings, the orchestrations are by Roy Douglas (1907-2015).⁷ Douglas was an English orchestrator and composer who worked with Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton, helping them prepare their music for publication.⁸

“Disgusted and horrified by the many bad orchestrations of Chopin’s music for the ballet Les Sylphides, I eventually created my own orchestration in 1936.”

Roy Douglas⁹

1. Frédéric Chopin et al, “Les Sylphides ballet; ‘Romantic reverie’ in one act,’ (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, June 2, 1909), The Library of Congress, accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200185190/.
2. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4^th ed., s.v. “Les Sylphides” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
3. Boris Schwarz, “Glazunov, Aleksandr Konstantinovich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011266.
4. “Les Sylphides,” The American Ballet Theatre, accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.abt.org/ballet/les-sylphides/.
5. Kathrine Sorley Walker, “Michael Fokine,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (August 18, 2019), accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Fokine.
6. Frédéric Chopin et al, “Les Sylphides ballet; ‘Romantic reverie’ in one act,’ (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, June 2, 1909), The Library of Congress, accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200185190/.
7. Alfred Beaujean, trans. Rick Fulker, liner notes to Leo Delibes: Coppéla-Suite; Frédéric Chopin: Les Sylphides, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Heinz Fricke, Capriccio 10 073, CD, 1986.
8. “Roy Douglas, Composer, Obituary,” The Telegraph, March 25, 2015, accessed August 21, 2019, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11494520/Roy-Douglas-composer-obituary.html.
9. John Walton, program notes to “The Creation: Haydn (In Celebration of the 100^th birthday of Roy Douglas, President RTWCS),” Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral Society, accessed August 21, 2019, http://www.rtwcs.org.uk/progs/2007/Creation.pdf.