Cesare Pugni (31 May 1802?, Genoa?, Italy — 26 January 1870, St. Petersburg, Russia) was an Italian composer of ballet music, while in his early career he scored Bel canto Opera, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music quite successfully. He is most noted for the ballets he scored while serving as Ballet Composer to Her Majesty‘s Theatre in London, and First Imperial Ballet Composer to the Romanov‘s Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, collaborating with such distinguished choreographers as Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Leon, Paul Taglioni, and Marius Petipa. Pugni is the most prolific composer of the genre of ballet music that has ever lived - by the end of his life he had scored 312 original ballets, and a gargantuan amount of various Pas and incidental dances, such as divertessments, variations, and additional music for interpolation into already exsisting works, as well as adapting and revising scores for ballets by other composers. Of the original ballets for which Pugni wrote music, he is most noted for Ondine (AKA The Naiad and the Fisherman) (1843); La Esmeralda (1844); The Pharaoh‘s Daughter (1862); and The Little Humpbacked Horse (AKA The Tsar Maiden) (1864). Of the various Pas and incidental dances, etc. for which he scored music, he is most noted for the Pas de Six from La Vivandiere (AKA Markitenka) (1844); the Pas de Quatre (1845); the Venetian Carnival Grand Pas de Deux (AKA The Fascination Pas de Deux from Satanella) (1859); and his additional music for the ballet Le Corsaire (circa 1856, 1863).