Nutcracker

3 Pages 686 Words

The Nutcracker ballet is an essential part of the holiday season. The story and the music never change from year to year but people are always enchanted by it. This year I attended a performance of The Nutcracker by the American Repertory Ballet at McCarter Theater. The music for the ballet was composed by Peter Tchaikovsky during the Romantic era. Tchaikovsky was asked to compose music for a ballet based on a story called “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” However, at this performance there was not a live orchestra, the music was recorded but still sounded professional.
While most people in attendance focused on the dancers on stage, my main focus was on the music coming out of the speakers. I’ve heard the music from the Nutcracker Suite before while watching the ballet but had never given much thought to the music that the dance is derived from. The instruments I could recognize consisted of flute/piccolo, oboe/bassoon, trumpets, castanets, tambourine, triangle, harp, and a xylophone (which I later learned was actually a celeste). The entire suite had homophonic texture.
There were many shifts in dynamics and mood which the characters reflected in their movements. For example in the opening piece the music was light, bouncy, had instruments playing higher notes, and children were dancing on the stage. When the music changed to a more serious tone with a slower tempo, key shifted down, less flute and more use off lower sounding instruments, during that time the adults were dancing.
Different instruments also represented separate characters. Military drums and horns often signaled the presence of the Nutcracker. When the Mouse King appeared the violins created a sense of urgency and danger when his army began fighting with the Nutcracker’s. The Sugar Plum Fairy danced to the music of the celeste which has a very light and dainty tinkling sound as opposed to the marching beat of the Nutcracker’s military drum....