Hannah

 **Hannah's Listening Assignment** media type="youtube" key="kG0jMkoKLJo" height="315" width="560" __**Title of piece**__: Pas De deux- The Nutcracker __**Composer:**__ Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
 * __Performer:__** Moscow Symphony Orchestra - Arthur Arnold
 * __Musical time period:__** Romantic, Classical

The piece is performed in a ballet called The Nutcracker. The piece lasts about four and a half minutes depending on the many versions. Pas de Deux is French for "Step of Two" and is what partnering is called in ballet. It occurs late in Act ll. It does not include an intrada, but consists only of an adagio, the two variations, and a coda. The "Pas de Deux", is danced by the Nutcracker Prince and Clara, the girl through whose eyes we experience the entire story.
 * __Information on the Piece:__**

This piece was composed my Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He lived from May 7th, 1840 until November 6th, 1893. He was a Russian composer during the Romantic era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, his Violin Concerto, his last three numbered symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin. Beginning in 1866, Tchaikovsky taught at the Moscow Conservatory while composing many of his concertos and symphonies. Tchaikovsky's musical works were performed frequently, with few delays between their composition and first performances, and the publication (after 1867) of songs and piano music for the home market helped improve Tchaikovsky`s popularity.
 * __Information on the Composer:__**

I chose this piece because it is in one of my favourite ballets and I think that the way this specific symphony orchestra plays it makes is sound very beautiful. This ballet is very well known also for some of the more popular pieces such as; The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Waltz of the Snowflakes and Waltz of the Flowers. I also enjoy that the composer, Tchaikovsky, wrote many of his symphonies and then advanced them into ballets. Also, I have being playing his music in Suzuki books since I was young.
 * __Analysis of Piece:__**

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy media type="youtube" key="QITJK8ExG-U" height="315" width="420" Symphony No. 1 in G minor (Winter Daydreams) media type="youtube" key="YIZFEhzkONw" height="315" width="420" The Nutcrakcer Suite media type="youtube" key="83hlFAYShHE" height="315" width="420"
 * __Other works:__**