Sergei Rachmaninoff always wanted to compose a ballet but never had the opportunity. Instead, later in life, he wrote a set of three colourful symphonic dances. Ravel originally composed La valse as a ballet, but it was considered undanceable. He published it anyway with a few descriptive phrases like “glimpses of waltzing couples,” “an immense hall,” “progressively brighter,” until finally “chandelier bursts forth.” Avner Dorman describes his concerto for piano composed in 2022 as “a work that expresses extreme emotions and sudden changes, from the depth of despair to complete ecstasy.”