Ethnic music, dance, and costume were a large part of romantic ballet. At the time Giselle was written, people thought of Germany when they heard a waltz because the waltz is of German origin. Giselle makes her first entrance to the music of a waltz, and the audience would have known at once that the ballet was set in Germany. Adam wrote three waltzes for Giselle: two for Giselle and one for the Wilis. He said that the "Giselle Waltz" in Act I has "all the German color indicated by the locality" and people agreed. One critic wrote: "A lovely waltz ... in the Germanic spirit of the subject".
