2 3 Throwback Thursday and Tchaikovsky’s Secret | Ballet Webb

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Throwback Thursday and Tchaikovsky’s Secret


Throwback Thursday and Tchaikovsky’s Secret

I have always loved the music for the adagio section of grand pas de deux in The Nutcracker. It isn’t something that is played during the holiday season at the mall, or even on the radio. Most people are very familiar with the music for the Sugar Plum Fairy’s variation, but few have heard the adagio unless they have attended the ballet.

Only recently did I run across the reason this piece of music may be so hauntingly beautiful. During the time Tchaikovsky was composing the music for The Nutcracker, his sister Alexandra (Sasha) passed away. According to author Jennifer Fisher: “Musicologist John Roland Wiley has suggested that Tchaikovsky actually left a coded message in the rhythm of the adagio’s principal piece of music, a descending scale of notes that is repeated “with prayer-like insistence.” Some believe that Tchaikovsky intended to honor his sister with this exquisite piece of music.

You can read the entire fascinating article here: http://www.danceadvantage.net/?s=Sugar+Plum .

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:
Ballet Secret #15p:  
The music in the adagio in the last act of Nutcracker may hold a secret.

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“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Aldous Huxley

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