Ex. 4-10: Danse de la Fée-Dragée

From Act 2 of Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" (Op. 71), premiered on 18 December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. The French title "Fée-Dragée" refers to dragée, a sugar-coated almond confection.

The piece features the celesta, a keyboard instrument Tchaikovsky discovered in Paris in 1891. He was so captivated by its sound — and so afraid rivals like Rimsky-Korsakov might use it first — that he had the instrument secretly shipped to Russia. Marius Petipa, the ballet master, asked for music that would sound like "drops of water shooting out of fountains." The celesta plays a clear, bell-like melody high up, while the bass clarinet answers far below — a sharp contrast between high and low. Below them, the strings are plucked (pizzicato). The version in this app is based on Tchaikovsky's own piano arrangement, which transposes the original key from E minor to G minor.

From the album Sugar Plum on the Run by Scott Dunn and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (2019)
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