The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a

Tchaikovsky hated The Nutcracker. He wrote to a friend during its composition that the ballet was 'infinitely worse than Sleeping Beauty' and that he was forcing himself through it out of contractual obligation. The premiere in December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg received mixed reviews. Tchaikovsky was dead eleven months later, at age fifty-three, under circumstances that remain one of the great mysteries of musical biography — officially cholera, possibly suicide, possibly forced suicide by a secret 'court of honor' convened by his former law school classmates who threatened to expose his homosexuality to the Tsar.

His least favorite composition became his most performed work. The Nutcracker generates more revenue for American ballet companies than all other ballets combined. It is, by any financial measure, the most successful piece of classical music ever written. Tchaikovsky would be appalled and also, being perpetually broke, quietly grateful.

The suite — extracted from the full ballet for concert performance — contains some of the most ingeniously orchestrated music of the nineteenth century. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy features the celesta, a keyboard instrument that Tchaikovsky discovered in Paris and was so excited about that he swore his friends to secrecy, terrified that Rimsky-Korsakov would hear about it and use it first. He had the instrument shipped to St. Petersburg in a crate marked 'fragile' and premiered it in The Nutcracker before anyone else in Russia had seen one. Composers are petty in the most wonderful ways.

The Waltz of the Flowers, the Arabian Dance, the Russian Dance — each one is a miniature masterpiece of tone painting. Tchaikovsky's gift was making orchestration look effortless. Every instrument sounds exactly right, every color is precisely what the scene demands. He achieved this while depressed, closeted, drinking heavily, and convinced the work was beneath him. Some people do their best work when they stop caring. Tchaikovsky did his most popular work when he actively didn't want to.