The Classical Music Book

191

Columbine and Harlequin evoke

The Nutcracker’s fantasy world in

costumes designed by Denmark’s

Queen Margrethe II for a production

in Copenhagen in 2016.

See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70–71 ■ The Magic Flute 134 –137 ■

Le Sacre du printemps 246–251 ■ Romeo and Juliet 272 ■ Appalachian

Spring 286–287

ROMANTIC 1810 –1920

he collaborated with Tchaikovsky

on Sleeping Beauty (1890). The work

was well received by the critics,

and the two men joined forces again

for The Nutcracker two years later,

although illness compelled Petipa

to delegate much of the work to his

assistant Lev Ivanov.

Fairytale ending

Composition of The Nutcracker

had a difficult start. Tchaikovsky felt

constrained by the unimaginative

libretto Petipa had created from

Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of

German author E.T.A. Hoffman’s

darker tale. The composer finally

found inspiration in the death of his

sister, his childhood playmate. He

poured his memories of her into the

music, particularly into the central

character, the young girl Clara,

who creeps down on Christmas

Eve to play with her favorite gift, a

nutcracker figure, which magically

comes to life. After she helps it to

defeat a vicious Mouse King, the

Nutcracker turns into a prince, who

takes her to the Land of Sweets,

ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The charm of Tchaikovsky’s

score is in large part due to his

creative use of the orchestra,

from the sinuous woodwind of the

Arabian Dance and the trilling

flutes’ and piccolos’ contrast with

the low bassoons in the Chinese

Dance, to the novelty of the celesta,

a newly invented keyboard

instrument with bars like a

glockenspiel, to introduce the Sugar

Plum Fairy. While the music gave

Petipa and his dancers the lead

they required, Tchaikovsky’s unique

sonority raises the music far above

the old music of the “specialists.” ■

Pyotr Ilyich

Tchaikovsky

Born in Votkinsk, Russia, in

1840, Tchaikovsky received

piano lessons from an early

age. He enrolled at the newly

opened St. Petersburg

Conservatory in 1861 and

wrote his First Symphony in

1866. His Romeo and Juliet
      overture (1869) was his first
      international success.
      Despite recognizing
      his own homosexuality,
      Tchaikovsky entered a
      doomed marriage in 1877.
      A year earlier, the wealthy
      widow and arts lover
      Nadezhda von Meck had
      become his patroness,
      enabling him to devote his
      time to composing. Von Meck
      declared herself bankrupt
      in 1890, causing a rift with
      Tchaikovsky. The fatalism
      that often tinged his music is
      clearly present in last works,
      such as his Sixth Symphony
      (“Pathétique,” 1893). He died
      nine days after its premiere.

Other key works

1876 Swan Lake

1878 Eugene Onegin

1889 Sleeping Beauty

1893 Symphony No. 6

(“Pathétique”)

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