Day 24 - Final Waltz and Apotheosis

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We reach the end of our journey. For the final moments of The Nutcracker Petipa asked for a 'grand general coda' with '128 bars of very brilliant and fiery music in 3/4'. Therefore like Act 1, Act 2 also ends with a waltz. But unlike the final bars of the first act, this dance is back in the original B flat major tonality. Everything has come full circle. The penultimate movement's D major (the key, of course, of the second movement in the whole ballet) provides a tertiary modulation back home. Tchaikovsky's waltz is a summation of everything that has occurred in the Kingdom of Sweets. Its metre recalls the Waltz of the Flowers,  while its emphasis on the second beat of the bar harks back to the Sarabande rhythms of the Spanish Dance. Again, those minor key colours come through all the time, but like the coda of the pas de deux, jeopardy is kept firmly at bay. After the initial waltz theme, Tchaikovsky has a series of characteristic episodes: double reed woodwind are followed by the celesta and flutes, with a more heroic brass section perhaps recalling the Russian Trepak. The waltz theme returns in yet more outspoken fashion presaging more variegated harmonies and Tchaikovsky's ubiquitous hemiola. In the original ballet, of course, this was a depiction of the world of The Nutcracker as it ends - the Nephew has been released from the wooden toy and returned to the Kingdom of Sweets. In modern productions this tends to be a last hurrah before a swift departure for Nuremberg, where Clara is found asleep under the Christmas Tree and Hans-Peter is reunited with his Uncle Drosselmeyer. The music for the Apotheosis was originally intended to depict 'illuminated fountains' and the celesta returns for those luminous water drops. But by recalling the earlier melody that accompanied Clara's trip over the Sea of Lemonade, Tchaikovsky did perhaps intend to indicate another journey. Whatever conclusion a production chooses, there can be no doubt about Clara's (and our) glee as the score ends in a resolute B flat major.


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Ricardo Cervera as the Nephew in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson