Flöte

On Dance of the Reed Pipes and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by P. Tchaikovsky. Certainly, almost everyone carries around some of the most charming melodies from Tchaikovsky's ballet suite "The Nutcracker" in their heads, as this orchestra piece is so widely known that can almost be considered a popular piece of music As a more demanding work of entertainment music, it is part of the Standard repertoire of our orchestras and can consequently be heard quite frequently.
Of course, 4 flutes cannot replace a whole Symphonie orchestra, so that only those two movements from the suite which have more of a Chamber music Instrumentation could be used for this arrangement. Anyway, the Dance of the Reed Pipes is dominated by 3 flutes which play parallel chords The pizzicato accompaniment of the strings is of such a transparency that the 4th flute is almost sufficient to take over this part, without disturbing the tonal balance Contrary to this dance, the key of which - D major - is quite appropriate for 4 flutes, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy had to be transposed from e minor to d minor to meet the tonal range of the flutes.
In the original, the Dance of the Sugar Fairy is played mainly by the celesta and the plucked string Instruments, which endows this piece, in combination with several chromatic melody phrases and the linking of the chords, with an extraordinary, almost esoteric sound character Without difficulty, the high register of the Instruments and the transparency of the movement allow for this Instrumentation with 4 flutes.
Besetzung : 4 flutes op. 71a