When one reads surviving musical scores composed to accompany ballets d'action, one can understand what the writer, poet, and composer Christian Friedrich Schubart meant when he commented on Toeschi's music for Bouqueton's ballets: ‘one can see the dancers in his scores’. His remark was meant to be flattering, and it echoes the principles of choreographers such as Noverre and Angiolini that music and action ought to be intimately linked. His remark is unusual, however, since his contemporaries did not ponder the nature of the musical accompaniment as much as one might think, or as much as he seems to have done. Innovative and highly effective music of the ballet d'action did not provoke the same level of debate as other aspects of performance, or as much as other contemporary dramatic music such as Gluck's. Gluck composed for Angiolini, but his music did not stir much critical reaction until he recycled some of it to form part of his reform operas. The relative silence of contemporary critics may be a result of their experience of the music, listening to the stage performance when it blended with the action. Schubart, on the other hand, seems to have seen the music on paper (‘in seinen Partituren’) when its particular qualities would have been more salient. The lack of controversy provoked by the music is arguably a sign of its success: like modern film music, its success depends on not drawing attention to itself, on supporting and highlighting the action in subtle ways without taking centre stage as concert music would.