The Nutcracker

Christmas is coming. The shopping malls are playing cheesy Christmas muzak over and over, and it's only 4 December. (For the record, most of them are Christmas songs, not carols, but anyway ...) However, this also means that it's time to start listening to Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. Ahhh.

A Christmas ballet, it annoys me somewhat to hear Waltz of the Flowers, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Dance of the Toy Trumpets used to advertise cleaning products all year round. (I'm a purist; I can't help it and no longer apologise for it.) A delightful traditional children's story about Clara and various toys coming to life at Christmas time, the score also stands alone as a timeless and complete work on its own. I've yet to see a live performance of The Nutcracker but hope to change that one day.

I've had a traditional wooden German nutcracker since I was about 15, when all of our music group received one as thanks for playing for their Christmas concert. While it's a bit too small to crack actual nuts, it's one of my favourite ornaments.

I've been listening to The Nutcracker today while working, for the first time this Christmas season. I thought that listening to instrumental music would be a good way to take my mind off things at work, without the risk of getting myself caught up listening to lyrics. Turns out I was wrong, as I've really enjoyed listening to all the orchestra parts, but it's made me feel a lot better about some things. :-)