Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is from Act II of the Nutcracker (1892), a two-act ballet that is perhaps the composer's best-loved and most famous work. In the United States, especially since the 1960s, performing The Nutcracker has become a Christmas tradition.

Waltz of the Flowers is a piece from Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик) and from his The Nutcracker Suite (Opus 71a), an orchestral work consisting of eight pieces from the ballet. Although the suite was popular from the beginning, the ballet did not achieve its great popularity until the middle of the twentieth century. The ballet is often performed during the Christmas season, especially in the United States.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) was a great Russian composer whose music is characterized by its magnificent melodies and sweeping orchestration. He wrote some of the most popular music in the classical repertoire, including the 1812 Overture, the first piano concerto, the violin concerto, the symphonies, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.

Tutorials