John Warrack points out that Tchaikovsky put the drama in the story into music: "By making B the key of the tragedy, he initiates a musical "plot" with the dark forces of Rothbart tending to drag the tonality down into flatter keys. The main action, on the other hand, lies on the key area of A." Tchaikovsky balanced all the musical components of the work. "The divertissements are in his lightest, most appealing musical manner", Warrack writes, "The dances that further the plot have rather greater musical substance, while the scenes of narrative and action are in what was found his "symphonic" manner." Critics said Tchaikovsky's music was "too noisy, too 'Wagnerian' and too symphonic". 