Tchaikovsky’s Contribution to The Nutcracker
- Roman Mykyta
- Dec 18, 2025
- 6 min read
Through his career, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky would be defined by ballet; his most famous compositions are largely excerpts from his ballets. At the same time, ballet has come to be defined by Tchaikovsky’s works. When people around the world imagine ballet, they likely conjure images of Swan Lake, and many also think of The Nutcracker.
Tchaikovsky’s Compositional Style
Tchaikovsky wrote in many genres: operas, symphonies, orchestral suites, tone poems, piano and violin concertos, a Divine Liturgy, chamber music, and solo piano works. Yet, regardless of genre, all of his purely instrumental music can be described as evocative and dansante—dance-like. Even if a piece wasn’t originally written for ballet, it could often be adapted for one. These two qualities—rhythmic vitality and emotional expressiveness—ultimately prepared him to compose the legendary ballet music of The Nutcracker.
Dansante Music
The “dansante” quality in Tchaikovsky’s style allowed him to write music naturally suited for dance. Nearly all of his compositions have a clear rhythmic sense, even without prominent percussion. Tchaikovsky rarely overuses drums; when he does, as in the 1812 Overture, it is notably exceptional. His rhythms emerge from melodic accents and the playful stressing of beats in unexpected places. Compared to his contemporaries, his melodic phrasing is busy but elegant—neither vulgar nor overbearing. In a way, his musical phrases seem to dance themselves.
Before composing ballet, he already embedded dance melodies into his symphonies and orchestral suites. Five of his seven symphonies feature full-scale waltzes, each elaborately decorated and individualized. These waltzes, however, were too theatrical to be performed in ballrooms; they are rhythmically clear but complex, requiring choreographed steps rather than improvisation.
Tchaikovsky’s symphonies and suites also include dances such as Gavottes, Marches, Mazurkas, and Neapolitan Dances. Symphonies No. 2 and No. 4 conclude with folk songs—the Ukrainian “The Crane” and the Russian “In the Field Stood a Birch Tree”—written to evoke rousing folk dances. By the time he wrote his first ballet, he had a refined sense of how to craft compelling dance melodies.
Evocative Music
Equally important is the evocative quality in Tchaikovsky’s music, which made him a natural ballet composer. This element was shaped both by the Romantic movement and by his interactions with The Mighty Handful—Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Borodin, and Mussorgsky—who emphasized Slavic identity in classical music. They wrote about Slavic subjects, incorporated chromatic harmonies inspired by folk and liturgical music, and expressed emotions in free form, often breaking conventional sonata or symphonic rules.
Tchaikovsky absorbed their ideas but remained distinct, retaining a love for Western music and integrating its sensibilities. While the other composers looked inward, closing “Peter the Great’s Window to the West,” Tchaikovsky kept the door open to cultural exchange. Their subjects included Prince Igor’s Battle with the Polovtsy Tribes, Tamar the Queen of Georgia, and Peter and Fevronia of Murom. Tchaikovsky’s compositions, by contrast, drew on Shakespeare’s plays, the legend of Joan of Arc, and E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker. Both Tchaikovsky and the Mighty Handful also adapted works by Gogol and Pushkin.
This evocative quality also stems from Tchaikovsky’s personal temperament. Descriptions of his childhood and relationships reveal a highly sensitive, melancholic personality—not perpetually sad, but deeply feeling. His emotional highs and lows are evident in his music. Unlike many Soviet composers, who often integrate sarcasm or irony, Tchaikovsky expresses the emotional essence of his subjects earnestly.
In several works, especially Symphonies 4–6, he hints at autobiographical resonances, leaving them cryptic enough to enhance rather than overshadow the composition. Even in The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky weaves his personal sensibilities into the music, giving the ballet emotional depth beyond the story itself.
What the Nutcracker Needed Musically
Two moods in Tchaikovsky’s style made him especially suited to compose The Nutcracker. These correspond to the two authors behind the story: E.T.A. Hoffman and Alexandre Dumas.
Hoffman, a German Romantic writer, countered Enlightenment rationalism with imagination and intuition. He viewed the world through a child’s eyes, where heightened emotional experience transforms ordinary things. The final lines of his story declare: “the most marvelous things can be seen if only you look.” Hoffman’s narrative includes dark undertones and grotesque or macabre elements, which many—including Tchaikovsky—perceive as gothic.
Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, rewrote the tale in a softer, French Romantic style, emphasizing chivalry and lyricism. These dual perspectives—the child’s imagination and chivalric romance—combine in The Nutcracker, creating a dreamlike narrative that balances fantasy with grace.
Childhood and Early Musical Inspiration
Both narrative strains resonate with Tchaikovsky’s own life and early compositions. Though he had no children of his own, he adored his nieces. Legends suggest that the origins of Swan Lake may have come from his play-acting fairytales with them.
He also composed The Album for the Young, a collection of piano pieces depicting children’s subjects such as “Hobbyhorse,” “Toy Soldiers’ March,” “My Doll is Sick,” “My Doll’s Funeral,” “My New Doll,” and “Sweet Dreams.” These pieces prefigure musical ideas later developed in The Nutcracker.
Sleeping Beauty, his preceding ballet, similarly draws on fairytales. Parallels exist between Carabosse in Sleeping Beautyand Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. Sleeping Beauty features adults inhabiting the fairytale world; it is grand, lush, and largely decorative, with only occasional introspection. In contrast, The Nutcracker begins in our world and transitions to a fairytale through the perspective of children (even when adults perform the roles). Its musical landscape emphasizes introspection, imagination, and psychological nuance.
Romance and Tone Poems
The chivalric romance in The Nutcracker echoes Tchaikovsky’s tone poems. Each Shakespeare-inspired piece contains a love theme:
Romeo and Juliet juxtaposes delicacy with grandeur.
The Tempest portrays Ferdinand and Miranda with lyrical fantasy akin to love themes in The Nutcracker.
Hamlet, based on Dumas’s translation, is more subdued but relevant for comparison.
Francesca di Rimini, from The Divine Comedy, develops mystery, anticipating the Waltz of the Snowflakes.
His first ballet, Swan Lake, also carries chivalric romance elements. Tchaikovsky’s compositions for soldiers, including Slavonic March and the 1812 Overture, foreshadow the musical battle between toy soldiers and mice in The Nutcracker.
Composing The Nutcracker
Having enjoyed the success of Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky eagerly reunited with librettist Ivan Vsevolozhsky and choreographer Marius Petipa. Vsevolozhsky chose Dumas’s adaptation of Hoffman’s story.
While popular imagination suggests Tchaikovsky initially struggled with inspiration, historical accounts indicate that as he composed, he grew increasingly satisfied with his work.
Tchaikovsky in the USA
Tchaikovsky composed The Nutcracker during a period of international travel, including a tour of the United States from New York to Maryland. While nothing in the ballet directly references the U.S., it has become a traditional holiday staple in America.
Dianna Cuatto, my artistic mentor, observes that American audiences may have been drawn to The Nutcracker because the heroine begins as an ordinary girl rather than a princess. Her bravery, curiosity, and respect for the Nutcracker—despite his flaws—resonate with audiences who can relate from the outset. Cuatto speculates that the festive American atmosphere may have inspired Tchaikovsky, subtly influencing the ballet’s energy.
Who is Drosselmeyer?
Musically, Drosselmeyer is linked to Carabosse from Sleeping Beauty. Both arrive at key points in the ballet, disrupting previously established harmonic progressions. Drosselmeyer is also connected to the mice and the Act I nightmare, suggesting a sinister aura.
Yet Drosselmeyer is ultimately protective, guiding characters through challenges and into the Land of Sweets. He combines Carabosse’s outward eccentricity with the Lilac Fairy’s benevolence.
The Musical Milieu
In Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky effectively used leitmotifs—recurring themes associated with characters or ideas. Swan Lake features the iconic Swan Theme, opening and closing each act. Sleeping Beauty uses Carabosse’s thunder countered by the Lilac Fairy’s redemptive motifs.
The Nutcracker, however, largely eschews leitmotifs. Only two melodies repeat: Clara’s lullaby, reprised at the end of the Party Scene, and a theme bookending Act II. Instead, Tchaikovsky employs theme and variation across the party and dream sequences, with key progressions moving forward in Act I and reworked in reverse in Act II.
For instance:
The Overture and Final Waltz share the same key.
The Waltz of the Snowflakes mirrors the Opening of Act II.
Only the Spanish and Arabian Dances diverge, marking the “floor show.”
Clara’s Polka is reworked as the Dance of the Reed Flutes.
Traditional and folk elements enrich the score:
The Grandfather Dance derives from a German tradition.
Arabian Dance comes from a Georgian lullaby.
Dance of the Polichinelles incorporates French nursery rhymes.
Finally, the celesta—used for the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy—was a novel instrument Tchaikovsky discovered in France. He wanted to keep it secret until its debut in the ballet. Petipa requested the music to evoke “water tinkling from a fountain,” making the celesta’s use ingenious and iconic.
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