Other Keyboard Instruments: The Celesta
You have probably heard a celesta, even if you haven’t heard of it. It is often used to give a “celestial” or magical texture to a musical work. One recent example is in John Williams’ musical scores for the Harry Potter movies, in which the theme for Hedwig (Harry’s magical owl) features the celesta.
The celesta (pronounced CHEH-LESS-TAH), or celeste (CHEH-LEST), is played using a keyboard and resembles a small upright piano. However, the celesta is quite different from a piano in terms of how its sound is produced.
Invented in the late 1800’s, the celesta is classed as a “concussive ideophone.” An ideophone is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by the instrument itself vibrating, rather than a string (as in the piano) or membrane (as in a drum). Familiar ideophones include, to take just a few examples, the musical triangle, the maraca, and the marimba.
An early version of the celesta produced its sound using struck tuning forks, but the quality of this sound proved too subtle for use within an orchestral work. It was too easily drowned out by the rest of the orchestra. Modern celestas use a series of tuned metal plates, similar to those of a xylophone or glockenspiel, which are struck by hammers when the player presses the appropriate keys.
Celestas can be obtained in three-octave, four-octave, and five-octave versions. The celesta is a transposing instrument, meaning that the sound produced is, in this case, one octave higher than the note written in the score. The instrument can be readily played by a pianist, since the method of playing uses the same keyboard.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was the first major composer to score orchestral works for the celesta after its development. And the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite is still among the most famous works to use the instrument. Another relatively famous work which features the celesta is the movement “Neptune, the Mystic,” from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, which premiered in 1918. In the 1930’s, Bela Bartok wrote another prominent work featuring the celesta, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
Many other artists in a variety of genres have used the instrument since Tchaikovsky’s day. A surprising number of jazz, rock, and pop musicians have used the celesta to give a unique tone to their works, from Fats Waller to Frank Sinatra to, more recently, the 10,000 Maniacs.
The celesta is a very specialized keyboard instrument, used only when a composer is after an ethereal, magical sound. But when that sound is called for, nothing else will do.
Tags: celesta, celeste, keyboard, keyboard instruments, music, musical instruments, piano, types of musical instruments
