The composer, violin virtuoso and teacher Ludwig Minkus (1826 – 1917) was born in Vienna, Austria.He worked extensively with the highly respected ballet masters and choreographers Arthur Saint-Léon and Marius Petipa on original works and revivals.Petipa asked Minkus to compose the accompaniment for his 1869 première of Don Quixote; the resulting score is full of variety, and suffused with Spanish flair. Minkus was made Ballet Composer to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatresas a result of the huge success of both the ballet and its music, and he held the post from 1871 until its discontinuation in 1886.
During his long career, Minkus composed full ballet scores for La Source, La Bayadère and Don Quixote, as well as a substantial amount of supplemental material for insertion into already existing ballets including Giselle. He is also noted for the Grand Pas Classique,the Pas de Trois and Mazurka des Enfants that werewritten especially for Marius Petipa’s 1881 revival of the ballet Paquita.