Page 218 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Figure 12.8
A recent production of The Nutcracker by the Royal Ballet, showing a pas de deux (steps for two principals) in “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”
three minutes at a time. Tchaikovsky’s “short-segment” style proved perfect for the demands of ballet. From his pen flowed Swan Lake (1876), Sleeping Beauty (1889), and The Nutcracker (1892), arguably the three most popular works in the entire repertoire of grand Romantic ballet (Figure 12.8).
Who doesn’t know some of the ballet music from The Nutcracker (1892), a holiday ritual as traditional as caroling and gift giving? The story, typical of Romantic-era narratives, springs from a fairy-tale fantasy. After a Christmas Eve celebration, an exhausted young girl, Clara, falls asleep and dreams of people from exotic places and toys that come to life. Fantastical characters parade be- fore us, not merely accompanied but literally brought to life by the music. In “Dance of the Reed Pipes” (see Listening Cue), sleeping Clara imagines she sees shepherds dancing in a meadow. Because shepherds since time imme- morial had played “pan pipes,” Tchaikovsky orchestrates this scene in a way that features flutes. (The tableau is also called the “Dance of the Toy Flutes.”) The rhythm of the music, first duple and slow, then duple and fast, propels the dancing shepherds. Indeed ballet music must not only create evocative moods through colorful orchestration, it must also project a strong, clear metrical
pulse to animate—indeed, regulate—the steps of the dancers. Whether the music is ballet or hip-hop, if you can’t hear the beat, you can’t dance.
Finally, it is important to keep in mind that ballet music is not program mu- sic. Program music is a purely instrumental genre in which sounds alone create the narrative. In ballet music, on the other hand, music is an adjunct: the move- ments, facial expressions, and gestures of the dancers tell the story.
listening Cue
lPeitesr Ttcehanikoivnskgy, “DCanuceof the Reed Pipes” from The Nutcracker (1892) Download 8
Situation: In this portion of the ballet, Clara’s dream takes her and the Handsome Prince to exotic places around the globe (China, Arabia, Russia, and Spain among them), and for each, Tchaikovsky creates music that sounds evocative of a foreign locale, at least to Western ears. While in China, we encounter a group of dancing shepherds playing reed pipes—hence the prominence of the flutes.
Genre: Ballet music Form: Ternary (ABA’)
what to listen for: Not only the charming sound of the flutes, but the clear-cut ternary form (ABA’): flutes in major, followed by soft trumpets in minor (1:22), and a return (1:57) to the flutes at the end
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reAD . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online.
LiSTeN TO . . . this selection streaming online.
WATCH . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online.
WATCH . . . a video of another part of The Nutcracker online.
DO . . . Listening Exercise 12.2, Tchaikovsky, “Dance of the Reed Pipes,” online.
chapter twelve romantic orchestral music
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