For purposes here, the style “periods” refer to timeframes generally accepted for history of art music in Europe. Names are of composers unless otherwise indicated as dancers, conductors, choreographers, or impresarios. In arranging the order, priority was given to the dates of compositions rather than lifespans.

Middle Ages (roughly 450-1400)

  • Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
    • Ordo virtutum—1151
  • The Play of Daniel—ca. 1227
  • Estampies—13th-14th centuries
  • Adam de la Halle (ca. 1231-1288)
    • The Play of Robin and Marion—ca. 1282
  • Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377), poet/composer
    • Remède de Fortune
  • Black Death, bubonic plague—1347; dances of death

Renaissance (1400—1600)

  • 1450—printing with movable type first used
  • 1501—printing of music with movable symbols
  • Balthasar de Beaujoyeux (d. 1587), choreographer/composer
    • Le Ballet comique de la Reine, 1581
  •  Thoinot Arbeau (1519-1596), dance theorist
    • L’Orchésographie, 1588
  • William Byrd  (1543-1623)
    • pieces in My Ladye Nevells Book, 1591
    • 17th century pieces in Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
  • William Shakespeare (1564-1616), playwright
    • Romeo and Juliet, 1597
  •  Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
    • Books on music & instruments, 1615

Baroque  (1600-1750)

  • Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
    • Orfeo, 1607
    • il Ballo delle ingrate, 1608
  • Louis XIV dances as the Sun King in  Le Ballet de la Nuit, 1653
  • Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
    • Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 1670
    • Atys, 1676
  • Pierre Beauchamp (1636-1705), choreographer
  • Playford Dances, published beginning in 1650
  • Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
  • George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
    • Water Music, 1717
    • il Pastor Fido, with ballet Terpsichore, 1734
    • Ariodante, 1735
    • Alcina, 1735
    • L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, 1740
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
    • Les Indes galantes, 1735
    • Le Temple de la gloire, 1745
  • Marie Sallé (1707-1756), dancer           
  • Marie Camargo (1710-1770), dancer

Classical (1750-1820)

  • Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787)
    • Don Juan, 1761
    • Orfeo ed Euridice, 1762
  • Jean Georges Noverre (1727-1810), ballet master
  • Gasparo Angiolini (1731-1803) choreographer
  • Jean Dauberval (1742-1806),  choreographer
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
    • Les Petits Riens, 1778
    • Idomeneo, 1780
    • Don Giovanni, 1787
  • Auguste Vestris (1760-1842), dancer
  • Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
    • Ritterballet,  1791
    • Creatures of Prometheus, 1801
  • Salvatore Viganò (1769-1821), choreographer

Romantic (1820-1900)

  • Filippo Taglioni (1777-1871) choreographer
  • Jean Coralli (1779-1854) choreographer
  • Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
    • Invitation to the Dance, 1819
    • (arranged for Le Spectre de la Rose, 1911)
  • Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
    • Rosamunde, 1823
  • Ferdinand Hérold (1791-1833)
    • La Fille mal gardée, 1828
  • Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1817-89)
    • 1864 score for La Fille mal gardée
  • Giacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
    • William Tell, 1829
  • Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
    • opera Robert le Diable, 1831
  • Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer (1785-1852)
    • La Sylphide, Paris, 1832
  • Herman Severin Løvenskjold (1815-1870)
    • La Sylphide, Copenhagen, 1836
  • Adolphe Adam (1803-1856)
    • Giselle, 1841
  • Marie Taglioni (1804-1884), dancer
  • August Bournonville (1805-1879), choreographer
  • Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874)
    • waltz interpolated into Giselle
  • Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
    • (arrangements of his pieces for Les Sylphides, 1909)
  • Fanny Elssler (1810-84), dancer
  • Jules Perrot (1810-1882), choreographer
  • Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
    • La Traviata, 1853
    • I vespri siciliani, 1854
  • Cesare Pugni (ca. 1802-1870)
    • composer of over 300 ballet scores
    • Le Corsaire, 1858
    • La Fille du Pharaon, 1862
  • Fanny Cerito (1817-1909), dancer
  • Marius Petipa, choreographer (1818-1910)
  • Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
    • Orpheus in the Underworld, 1858
  • Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
    • opera Romeo & Juliet, 1867
  • Carlotta Grisi (1819-1899), dancer
  • Lucille Grahn (1819-1907), dancer
  • Arthur Saint-Léon (1821-1870) choreographer, violinist
  • Ludwig  Minkus  (1826-1891)
    • Don Quixote, 1869
    • La Bayadère, 1877
  • Léo Delibes (1836-1891)
    • Coppélia, 1870
    • Sylvia, 1876
  • Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899)
    • Die Fledermaus, 1874
  • Édouard Lalo (1823-1892)
    • Namouna, 1882
  • Louis Mérante (1828-1887) choreographer
  • Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
    • Carnival of the Animals, 1886
  • Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
    •  Prince Igor, 1889, posthumous
  • Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
    • Swan Lake,1875
    • Sleeping Beauty,1888
    • The Nutcracker, 1891
  • Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
    • his Liebeslieder  waltzes set by Balanchine, 1961
  • Lev Ivanov (1834-1901), choreographer
  • André Messager (1853-1929)
    • The Two Pigeons, 1886
  • Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
    • Shéhérazade, for orchestra, 1888
  • Riccardo Drigo (1846-1930)
    • Les Millions d’Arlequin, 1900
  • Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
    • Raymonda, 1898
    • The Seasons, 1901
  • Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
    • Till Eulenspiegel, 1894
    • Der Rosenkavalier, 1911
    • Legend of Joseph, 1913

Modern (1900—)

  • Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
    • L’après-midi d’un faune, 1892
    • Jeux, 1912
  • Léon Bakst (1866-1924), scenic designer
  • Alexander Benois (1870-1960), scenic designer
  • Alexander Gorsky (1871-1924), choreographer
  • Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929), impresario
  • Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1945), composer/conductor
    •  Pavillon d’Armide, 1907
    • Narcisse et Echo, 1911
  • Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
    • Daphnis et Chloé, 1909
    • La Valse, 1919
    • Boléro, 1928
  • Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
    • El Amor Brujo, 1915
    • El Sombrero de Tres Picos, 1917
  • Erik Satie (1866-1925)
    • Parade, 1917
  • Ottorino Respighi  (1879-1936)
    • arranged Rossini music for La Boutique fantasque, 1919
  • Michel Fokine (1880-1942), choreographer
  • Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), dancer
  • Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
    • Firebird, 1910
    • Petrouchka, 1911
    • Le Sacre du Printemps, 1913
    • Les Noces, 1914
    • Apollon Musagète, 1927
    • Agon, 1956
  • Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960) dancer, director
  • Marie Rambert (1888-1982) dancer
  • Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950), dancer, choreographer
  • Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
    • The Prodigal Son, 1928
    • Romeo and Juliet, 1935
  • Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972), choreographer
  •  Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
    • Le Boeuf sur le toit, 1919
    • La Création du monde, 1923
    • Le Train bleu, 1924
  • Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
    • Les Biches, 1924
  • Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
    • Golden Age, 1927
  • Léonide Massine (1895-1979), choreographer
  • Willam Christensen (1902-2001), choreographer
  • George Balanchine (1904-1983), choreographer
    • moves to United States, 1934
  • Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-1988), choreographer
  • Agnes de Mille (1905-1993), choreographer
  • Constant Lambert (1905-1951) composer/conductor
    • Romeo and Juliet, 1926
    • Pomona, 1930
    • Horoscope, 1938
    • Tiresias, 1951
  • Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996), impresario, historian
  • Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
    • Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, 1946
  • Robert Irving (1913-1991), conductor
  • Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
    • Fancy Free, 1944
    • West Side Story, 1956
  • Carlos Surinach (1915-1997)
    • Embattled Garden, 1958
    • Acrobats of God, 1960
  • Jerome Robbins (1918-1998), choreographer
  • John Lanchbery (1923-2003) arranger/conductor
  • Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992), choreographer
  • Paul Taylor (1930-2018), dancer/choreographer/director
  • Jacques d’Amboise (1934-2021) dancer/choreographer
  • Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993), dancer/director
  • Pina Bausch (1940-2009), choreographer
  • Twyla Tharp (1941-), dancer/choreographer
  • Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948-), dancer/choreographer/director
  • Mark Morris (1956-), dancer/choreographer
  • Chase Brock (1983-), choreographer