celesta
A keyboard instrument where hammers strike metal plates, producing a bell-like tone.
In Depth
The celesta looks like a small upright piano but produces sound by hammers striking metal plates suspended over wooden resonators. The result is a pure, bell-like tone that shimmers in the upper register. Tchaikovsky was one of the first major composers to use it orchestrally.
The most famous celesta passage is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, which showcases the instrument's ethereal quality perfectly. The celesta has since become a standard orchestral instrument, used whenever composers want a delicate, magical quality — it appears prominently in film scores by John Williams and others.
Tchaikovsky was so excited about discovering the celesta in Paris that he asked his publisher to keep it secret, fearing another composer would use it before he could debut it in The Nutcracker.