Offered here is ORIGINAL mid-19th-century VINTAGE Sheet Music entitled: "LA MAZURKA danced in LA GITANA by MADlle FANNY ELSSLER to whom it is inscribed by the Arranger C. W. Glover, Fleetwood's lithog. New Yrok, Published by Firth & Hall, No. 1 Franklin Sq." Complete in 4 sheets (7 numbered pages). This is often found with only the title page (image of dancer); it is rare to have it complete with the music.
The music was prepared for Fanny Elssler's American debut in the 1840s. The lithographed image, however, is actually of MARIE TAGLIONI! (See G. Chaffee's catalog of American Ballet Sheet Music: Amer.II.79b.)
Marie Taglioni (1804 - 1884) was a ballet dancer of the Romantic ballet era, the rival of Fanny Elssler and a central figure in the history of European dance during the time of Elssler, Fanny Cerrito, Carlotta Grisi, and Lucile Grahn. She was one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the romantic ballet, which was cultivated primarily at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet. She is credited with popularizing dancing en pointe. Taglioni was born in Stockholm, Sweden to Italian choreographer Filippo Taglioni and Swedish ballet dancer Sophie Karsten. Her brother, Paul (1808?1884), was also a dancer and an influential choreographer; they performed together early in their careers.
Taglioni moved to Vienna with her family at a very young age where she began her ballet training under the direction of her father. Filippo created a rigorous training regimen for his daughter that consisted of holding positions for 100 counts and engaging in two hour long intervals of conditioning exercises, adagio, and jumping combinations. In Vienna, Marie danced her first ballet choreographed by her father titled "La Reception d'une Jeune Nymphe à la Cour de Terpsichore".
Before joining the Paris Opéra, Taglioni danced in both Munich and Stuttgart, and at age 23 debuted in another ballet choreographed by her father called "La Sicilien" that jump-started her ballet career. Taglioni rose to fame as a danseuse at the Paris Opéra when her father created the ballet La Sylphide (1832) for her. Designed as a showcase for Taglioni's talent, it was the first ballet where dancing en pointe had an aesthetic rationale and was not merely an acrobatic stunt, often involving ungraceful arm movements and exertions, as had been the approach of dancers in the late 1820s.
In 1827 Taglioni left the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre to take up a three-year contract in Saint Petersburg with the Imperial Ballet (known today as the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet). It was in Russia after her last performance in the country (1842) and at the height of the "cult of the ballerina", that a pair of her pointe shoes were sold for two hundred rubles, reportedly to be cooked, served with a sauce and eaten by a group of balletomanes.[3] In July 1845, she danced with Lucile Grahn, Carlotta Grisi, and Fanny Cerrito in Jules Perrot's Pas de Quatre, a ballet representing Taglioni?s ethereal qualities that was based on Alfred Edward Chalon?s lithographic prints. "Pas de Quatre" was originally choreographed to be presented to Queen Victoria.
Taglioni retired from performing in 1847; for a time she took up residence at the Ca' d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice. When the ballet of the Paris Opéra was reorganized on stricter, more professional lines, she was its guiding spirit. With the director of the new Conservatoire de danse,Lucien Petipa, and Petipa's former pupil, the choreographer Louis Mérante, she figured on the six-member select jury of the first annual competition for the corps de ballet, held 13 April 1860.
Taglioni died in Marseille on 22 April 1884, the day before her 80th birthday.