The Nutcracker Suite is a piano arrangement of the concert version of the ballet of that name. Tchaikovsky used only part of the music for the ballet in the suite. The Overture and the March, which is the most important of the characteristic dances in the Suite, come from the first act of the ballet. The remaining dances originate from the second act. They are: The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, in which the leading part is, in the original composition, played typically by the celeste almost all the way through; the fiery Russian "Trepak" which reminds us of Tchaikovsky's national origins; the Arab Dance tinged with a gentle melancholy; the Chinese Dance with its ostinato triple rhythm; the graceful Dance of the Reed Flutes; and finally the longest piece in the Suite: the Waltz of the Flowers in which Tchaikovsky, writing in the penultimate year of his life, showed his musical affinity with Johann Strauss.The Nutcracker Suite was performed for the first time, with great success, on 7 March 1892 at the Ninth Symphony Concert of the Russian Musical Society in St Petersburg.
Instrumentation:
piano
op. 71a
Esipoff
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Weitere Infos & Material
Vorwort - Preface - Préface - Ouverture - March - Dance of the Fairy Dragée - The fiery Trepak - Dance Arabe - Chinese Dance - Dance of the Mirlitons - Flower Waltz
Tschaikowsky, Peter Iljitsch
Tschaikowsky wurde 1840 in Wotkinsk (Russland) geboren. Er war zunächst im Justizministerium tätig, schied nach kurzer Zeit jedoch aus dem Staatsdienst aus, um sich der Musik zu widmen. Er war Schüler von Nikolaj Zaremba und Anton Rubinstein. Von 1866 bis 1878 wirkte er als Theorielehrer am Moskauer Konservatorium. Tschaikowsky gilt als der große Symphoniker Russlands, der sich an der westlichen Musik orientierte, ohne die nationale Komponente zu vernachlässigen. Er starb 1893 in St. Petersburg.