Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a VIII. Waltz of the Flowers The Nutcracker is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as had been the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular. Since the late 1960s, it has been danced by countless ballet companies, and Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser-known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891). #tchaikovsky #christmasmusic