Coppélia
Lincoln Kirstein describes the music as "sprightly" and the "most durable since Adam's Giselle". Dance music had become the "miserable servant" of the dance, Kirstein points out, until Delibes's colorful, rhythmically varied, and richly orchestrated Coppélia. While the music did little to change dance design itself, he writes, it did provide a criterion for future ballet music.