Celesta
DEFINITION
An keyboard instrument invented in Paris in 1886 which resembles a miniature upright piano. It is a percussion instrument, sounded by mallets which strike steel tuning forks set in a soundbox. The mallets are controlled by a keyboard. The range is from the c' on the bass clef staff to c''''' above the treble clef staff.The celesta sounds one octave higher than the written notesa small keyboard instrument developed in the later 19th century and using hammers that strike metal bars to give a ringing sound. Tchaikovsky used the celesta, then a new instrument, in his dance of the sugar-plum fairy in his Nutcracker ballet.