Cadenza

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 Enemies
 Strengths

**Cadenza** is a character who appeared in ***Beauty and the Beast***. He is a grand piano who is described as "a neurotic maestro". He is Madame de Garderobe's husband, and the two were separated during the years of the curse (due to their large sizes, as they couldn't move as easily as the smaller Enchanted Objects), much to both their dismay. Cadenza is voiced and portrayed by Stanley Tucci.

## Role in the film

In the opening of the film, Cadenza is seen playing the harpsichord at the Prince's ball while his wife, Madame de Garderobe, sings, and their dog FrouFrou watches. Then when the Prince refuses to give shelter to an old beggar, she reveals herself to be an Enchantress. She curses the Prince to take the form of a beast, and she also curses the castle staff, with Cadenza turned into a harpsichord, his wife turned into a wardrobe, and FrouFrou into a footstool.

Years later, Maurice, just fresh from a wolf chase, stumbles upon the castle. He hears a harpsichord playing and follows the sound to the ballroom. When Cadenza notices Maurice is looking at him, he immediately douses his candles and falls silent. Maurice is still unnerved, eventually trying to escape from the castle grounds. But he is intercepted and imprisoned by the Beast.

Later, after Belle takes Maurice's place as a prisoner, Lumièredecides to arrange a dinner spectacle for her despite the Beast's orders. He recruits Cadenza to make music, but Cadenza is at first unsure of his playing ability. When he tests it out, he is stopped by "another cavity". Lumière reminds him that if he is ever to see his wife again, he must help Belle feel welcome. He is convinced and promises to play despite the "dental pain", but Cogsworth requests that he play quietly so as not to alert the Beast. The harpsichord sarcastically agrees and asks if there are any other "tasteless demands" that Cogsworth has in mind.

After a successful dinner, Belle wanders into the forbidden West Wing and is frightened away by the temperamental Beast. Later, when Belle is rescued from wolves by the Beast, she takes him back to the castle to nurse him back to health. When Belle inquires the staff as to why the Beast is as selfish as he is, they tell her that when his loving mother died of the plague, he was taken under the wing of his cruel father, who shaped him to exact version of himself.

Later, Cadenza laments and wonders if he will ever be with his love again. His hopes are renewed when Belle and the Beast start to grow closer to each other. When they share a dance, Cadenza plays a romantic song for the two. But when the Beast lets Belle go to help her father, Cadenza and the rest of the staff begin to lose hope and begin to accept their fate of forever being antiques.

That all changes when Gaston and an angry mob invade the castle, looking to kill the Beast. Cadenza used himself to barricade the doors, with the other staff members supporting him. During the ensuing battle, Madam de Garderobe joins the fight. Cadenza is overjoyed to see his wife again. Cadenza bodyslams and pins down LeFou, who begs Gaston to help him, but Gaston abandons him to find the Beast--even Cadenza is shocked by this act of betrayal and pities LeFou. When he rams aside several other villagers, an elderly female (later revealed at the end to be Cogsworth's wife) ordered the villagers surrounding him to have him "silenced". Luckily, his wife managed to show herself to him in years and prevented that, allowing the maestro to fire his keys at the attackers like bullets. The staff wins the battle against the mob. But when the last petal falls from the Beast's rose, they all begin to lose their human essence. Cadenza watches in sadness as his wife becomes an ordinary wardrobe shortly before turning into an ordinary harpsichord.

Miraculously, when Belle confesses her love for the Beast, a villager named Agathe, who is revealed to be the Enchantress, lifts the curse from the castle, restoring the Beast and the staff to their human forms and the castle to its former glory. Cadenza is happily reunited with his wife and they play together at Belle and the Prince's ball (too overjoyed to mind that he's missing most of his teeth).

## Trivia

* His character was possibly inspired by Lord Forte, the main antagonist of *Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas*, in that they are both maestros who have been turned into instruments with keys. The biggest difference between the two is that Forte is a villain who seeks attention from the Beast and doesn't want to be human again while Cadenza is a good-natured person who wants to be human again.
* A musical feature of harpsichords is their inability to vary dynamics, as the plucking action of the strings prevents the instrument from playing louder or softer. As a result, harpsichords are capable of playing only one dynamic. This is possibly why Cadenza was offended by Cogsworth telling him to "play quietly" at Belle's dinner, as this could not be done on a harpsichord.
* At the beginning of the film, Cadenza had a full set of teeth that lacked dental hygiene, and after the spell was broken he only had a few of them left due to using them during battle. However, at the very end, he seemed to have gotten them replaced by a brand new sparkling clean set of teeth. His original teeth were back in at the credits, but rather out of position.
* Cadenza's hairstyle and dressing in a human form bear a resemblance to Ludwig van Beethoven, a famous German composer, and pianist.