Concert Review: Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest
To start off, this concert caught my eye because it had so many views and it looked
really famous, so I decided to watch it on you tube, and I was astonished by the
performance. Everything was so coordinated, with beautiful music, different types of
instruments, and classical music, everything just resulted perfectly
The Nutcracker is a classical musical written by the Russian composer Pyotr
Tchaikovsky between 1891 and 1892. He is well known for writing his compositions
during the Romantic Period and is most known for his best compositions "The
Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake". This composition has the distinction of being the most
frequently performed ballet, this concert took place in 2010 and was conducted by
Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who I much respect, due to the great leadership and tempo he
had, and it was also played by the fabulous Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. A very
interesting fact is actually that Pyotr Tchaikovsky wasn't a fan of his own piece, some of
his words were: "The ballet is infinitely worse than Sleeping Beauty, of this I'm sure".
This was after he turned down the original commission and needed to be persuaded.
The Nutcracker was based on a short story written by a German author, Ernst Theodor
composition consists of an adventure that a young girl called Clara took, and a life-size
Nutcracker that comes to life, both having an adventure through mystical lands while
battling the mouse king.
This music in the ballet is extremely lighthearted and melodious, this concert utilizes
high parts of the orchestra and establishes brilliant combinations of woodwind
instruments in order to produce a doll-like fantasy-sounding environment
In this concert, the Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky is sending the whole audience on a roller
coaster of emotions, the first scene shows a lighthearted tone as the music sets a
sound of string instruments such as violins and violas. I could also appreciate that the
tempo was very fast (prestissimo), exactly in the scene "March", it is very interesting,
marching, and it is amazing how music can go further than just a composition. After the
first scene, then comes scene b, which starts off with Coffee, this section focuses more
on the woodwind instruments and maintains a much slower tempo (Largo) and less
intense dynamic. In terms of the entire piece, there was always a constant melody
playing, and it is hard to achieve this because considering all the emotion, instruments,
tempos, and dynamics placed into almost a 2-hour performance, is absolutely insane
That is why it is considered one of the best in history, people love it, it never gets old
and it is very pleasing because it transports you into another dimension and makes you
travel into a musical world, where you can find peace and happiness
Concerning the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, it was very entertaining to watch
the orchestra showed a level of experience and focus on when they were playing and
families of strings, woodwind, percussion, and brass.