MusicKit
the Virtual Music Classroom

Music Activities and Resources for Kids and Teachers

Listening Activities
All of the Featured composer pages are taken from Kit Eakle's Listen to the Music.
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PETER ILYTCH
TCHAIKOVSKY
(1840-1893)

(PEE.ter EE.lich cheye.KOF.skee)

 

COMPOSITION:

Danse des Mirlitons

"Dance of the Reed Pipes" from The Nutcracker Suite

 

 

 


This page will display a composer and a piece of music for a month
and then change. Listen for the MIDI file of the piece of music as well.


Suggestions for using this page

FEATURES


1. 2/4 time - conduct in 2.
2. Wind instruments - flute and English horn
3. String pizzicato - plucking the strings of the violin family instruments instead of bowing
4. Tempo: Moderato Assai

BACKGROUND:

The Composer:

Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky was born in Votinsk, a remote province of Russia. He graduated from law school and became, like his father before him, a government official. It was not until age 23 that he decided to resign his post and devote himself to music, enrolling in the new Conservatory of St. Petersburg. After an unhappy marriage, a mysterious benefactress he never met supported him, allowing him to spend full time composing. He popularized Russian music in the west and had a particular talent for orchestration - the art of using the colours of the various instruments of the orchestra for their fullest effect. He died in a cholera epidemic in 1893.

The Composition:
The Nutcracker Suite was written as ballet music dramatizing a popular Christmas tale by the German writer E. T. A. Hoffman. (Several versions of the story are available.) A SUITE is a group of short pieces about a theme or story. The piece we are listening to is one of the dances Christmas toys perform in a young girl's dream, the "Dance of the Toy Flutes."

Listen for the strings (violas, cellos and basses) playing pizzicato (pits-i-CAH-toe), by plucking the strings with fingers. Then comes the theme played on FLUTE. Listen carefully for the ENGLISH HORN which plays a solo. Then TRUMPETS and PERCUSSION join in. The flutes return at the end. This piece is a beautiful example of Tchaikovsky's use of orchestral colours.

QUESTIONS:
(For these questions try to play a recording rather than the MIDI file on this page)

What instrument plays the main melody? [flute] What other instruments do you hear? What is the mood of the music? Does it change? How?

SOME POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES:

1. Hold up pictures of the various instruments featured, flute, English horn, and trumpets, as they play.
2. Discuss different moods created by different instruments.
3. Conduct in 2.
4. Read the story of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman or watch a video of the ballet.
5. Draw a picture of the toy flutes dancing.
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