Ballets By Cesare Pugni - Published Sheet Music

Published Sheet Music

Pugni's music began being published as early as 1822 with his Sinfonia in D minor. Many of Pugni's symphonies and concert pieces were published by the Milan based publisher F. Lucca, often for full orchestra. Likely due to the sheer tunefulness of his music, Pugni's early ballet scores were almost all published in piano reduction by both F. Lucca and Gio Ricordi, another music publisher based in Milan.

Many ballets and incidental numbers Pugni wrote for Her Majesty's Theatre in London was published in Piano reduction by the London based music publishers Ch. Ollivier, Chappell & Co., and particularly T. Boosey and Jullien. As Pugni's ballets were staged by various companies throughout Europe—in such cities as Milan, Berlin, and Vienna for example—many other music publishers began distributing his scores, often with supplemental numbers by other composers.

As the copyright of Pugni's music expired, the music publisher Jullien & Co. began publishing a number of his dances from various ballets without giving the composer credit. Often the music would credit the composer as "Composed by Jullien" or as "traditional", typically under such titles as The original mazurka or The Original Galop, for example. Several waltzes, polkas, and various national dances from Pugni's ballets were often published with detailed instructions on how to perform the said dances, and occasionally lithographs from whichever ballet the number was extracted was included as artwork for the frontispiece. As time went on many of these pieces were sold to music publishers all over Europe and the United States.

As Pugni's career took him to Russia, his ballets continued being published in piano reduction. Many St. Petersburg based publishers such as Basil Denotkine, Ch. Stellowsky and Bessell brought out not only Pugni's original full-length ballets but his additional dances for various works and his adaptations of the scores of other composers.