Editing Léo Delibes (section)

===Ballet===
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[[Image:Sylviascore.gif|thumb|upright=1.38|The first few bars of Pizzicato from ''Sylvia'']]
Influenced by Adam, ''Coppélia'' makes extensive use of leitmotifs for character and mood, and contains some vivid musical scene-painting.<ref name=dc>Craine, Debra and Judith Mackrell. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199563449.001.0001/acref-9780199563449-e-709 "Delibes, Clément Philibert Léo"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Dance'', Oxford University Press, 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2020 {{subscription required}}</ref> Delibes greatly enlarged on Adam's modest use of leitmotifs: each leading character is accompanied by music that portrays him or her; [[Noël Goodwin]] describes them: "Swanilda in her entry waltz, bright and graceful; Dr. Coppélius in stiff, dry counterpoint, the canonic device ingeniously applied also to Coppélia, the doll he has created; Franz in two themes, each sharing the same melodic shape of the first four notes, but the second having a more sentimental feeling than the sprightly first theme".<ref name=ng>Goodwin, Noël. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001/acref-9780195173697-e-0480"Delibes, Léo"], ''The International Encyclopedia of Dance'', Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 14 January 2020 {{subscription required}}</ref> Delibes made extensive use of characteristic national dances, including the [[bolero]], [[czardas]], [[jig]] and [[mazurka]], continually interspersed with waltz rhythms.<ref name=ng/>
In the opinion of several critics, the score of ''Sylvia'' surpasses that of ''Coppélia''.<ref name=dc/><ref name=ng/> [[Tchaikovsky]] was greatly impressed by it, calling ''Sylvia'':

{{blockquote|The first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the main, but the sole interest. What charm, what grace, what melodic, rhythmic and harmonic richness. I was ashamed. If I had known this music earlier, then of course I would not have written ''[[Swan Lake]]''.<ref>''Quoted'' in Bullock, p. 67</ref>}}

[[Carl Van Vechten]] shared Tchaikovsky's view that Delibes revolutionised ballet composition: "Before he began to compose his ballets, music for dancing, for the most part, consisted of tinkle-tinkle melodies with marked rhythm." In Van Vechten's view, Delibes revolutionised ballet music by introducing in his scores "a symphonic element, a wealth of graceful melody, and a richness of harmonic fibre, based, it is safe to hazard, on a healthy distaste for routine". Van Vechten considers Delibes' scores to be the forerunners of 20th-century ballets such as [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]]'s ''[[Jeux]]'', [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]]'s ''[[Daphnis et Chloé]]'' and [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]]'s ''[[Petrushka (ballet)|Petrouchka]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 737861|title = Back to Delibes|last1 = Van Vechten|first1 = Carl|journal = The Musical Quarterly|volume = 8|issue = 4|pages = 605–610|year = 1922}}</ref>

After ''Sylvia'', Delibes's only composition for dance was a suite of six dances for the Comédie-française production of ''Le Roi s'amuse'',  The dances, in a pastiche of antique style, show a keen ear for the nuances of period character in Goodwin's view. They are not often played in concert and are more familiar in recordings.<ref name=ng/>