View source for Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)

{{Short description|Orchestral work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}}
{{italic title}}
'''''Romeo and Juliet''''', TH 42, ČW 39, is an [[incidental music|orchestral work]] composed by [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]].  It is styled an ''Overture-Fantasy'', and is based on [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s [[Romeo and Juliet|play of the same name]].  Like other composers such as [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]] and [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]], Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on ''[[The Tempest (Tchaikovsky)|The Tempest]]'' and ''[[Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)|Hamlet]]'' as well.

Unlike Tchaikovsky's other major compositions, ''Romeo and Juliet'' does not have an [[opus number]].<ref>[http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Romeo_and_Juliet Tchaikovsky Research: ''Romeo and Juliet'']</ref>  It has been given the [[Catalogues of classical compositions|alternative catalogue]] designations TH 42<ref>Alexander Poznansky & Brett Langston, ''The Tchaikovsky Handbook'', Vol. 1 (2002) [http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Romeo_and_Juliet Tchaikovsky Research: Catalogue Numbers]</ref> and ČW 39.<ref>Polina Vaidman, Liudmila Korabel'nikova, Valentina Rubtsova, ''Thematic and Bibliographical Catalogue of P. I. Čajkovskij's Works'' (2006), and ''P. I. Čajkovskij. New Edition of the Complete Works'' (1993–date)</ref>

==Musical structure==
{{Unreferenced section|date=October 2025}}
[[File:Romeo and juliet brown.jpg|thumb|right|An 1870 [[oil painting]] by [[Ford Madox Brown]] depicting ''Romeo and Juliet'''s famous balcony scene]]
Although styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall design is a [[symphonic poem]] in [[sonata form]] with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story.  The first strand, written in [[F-sharp minor]], following [[Mily Balakirev]]'s suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly [[Friar Laurence]]. Here there is a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. The Friar Laurence theme is heard in F-sharp minor, with plucked strings, before ending up in E minor. The introduction is [[chorale]]-like.

[[File:Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen.pdf|450px|page=967]]

Eventually a single first inversion [[B minor]] chord that is passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B&nbsp;minor, the strife theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight, depicted by crashing cymbals. There are agitated, quick sixteenth notes.  The action suddenly slows, the key changing from B minor to D-flat (as suggested by Balakirev) and we hear the opening bars of the "love theme", the third strand, passionate and yearning in character but always with an underlying current of anxiety. The love theme signifies the couple first meeting and the scene at Juliet's balcony. The English horn and viola represent Romeo, while the flutes represent Juliet.

[[File:Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen.pdf|450px|page=968|thumb|right|The strife theme]]

In the development, the battling strand returns, this time with more intensity and build-up, with the Friar Laurence theme heard with agitation in F♯ minor. This section is then repeated again, a semitone higher. Eventually, a fortissimo is reached where the trumpets play an altered Friar Laurence theme with the rest of the orchestra having an off-beat gesture, in B minor. This leads into the recapitulation where the strife theme returns.

A transition is heard where the clarinets play an altered love theme over restless violin phrases, before the strings enter with a lush, hovering melody over which the flute and oboe eventually soar with the love theme once again, this time loud and in [[D major]], signaling their [[consummated]] marriage, and finally heard in E major. It is interrupted by two large orchestra hits with [[cymbal]] crashes, which symbolise the families' war disrupting their love, and eventually bringing their deaths, with hate prevailing over love. A final battle theme is played, then a soft, slow dirge in [[B major]] ensues, with [[timpani]] playing a repeated [[triplet (music)|triplet]] pattern, and [[tuba]] holding a B natural for 16 bars. The woodwinds play a sweet homage to the lovers, and a final allusion to the love theme brings in the climax, beginning with a huge [[crescendo]] B natural roll of the timpani, and the orchestra plays [[homophony|homophonic]] shouts of a B major chord before the final bar, with full orchestra belting out a powerful B natural to close the overture.

==Composition==
[[File:Pyotr Tchaikovsky с. 1870.jpg|thumb|Tchaikovsky at the time he wrote ''Romeo and Juliet'']]

===Tense relationship===
In 1869 Tchaikovsky was a 28-year-old professor at the [[Moscow Conservatory]]. Having written his [[Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|first symphony]] and an [[The Voyevoda (opera)|opera]], he next composed a [[symphonic poem]] entitled ''[[Fatum (Tchaikovsky)|Fatum]]''. Initially pleased with the piece when [[Nikolai Rubinstein]] conducted it in [[Moscow]], Tchaikovsky dedicated it to [[Mily Balakirev|Balakirev]] and sent it to him to conduct in St. Petersburg. ''Fatum'' received a lukewarm reception. Balakirev wrote a detailed letter to Tchaikovsky explaining the defects, but also giving some encouragement:

<blockquote>Your ''Fatum'' has been performed [in St. Petersburg] reasonably well ... There wasn't much applause, probably because of the appalling cacophony at the end of the piece, which I don't like at all. It is not properly gestated, and seems to have been written in a very slapdash manner. The seams show, as does all your clumsy stitching. Above all, the form itself just does not work. The whole thing is completely uncoordinated.... I am writing to you with complete frankness, being fully convinced that you won't go back on your intention of dedicating ''Fatum'' to me. Your dedication is precious to me as a sign of your sympathy towards me—and I feel a great weakness for you.</blockquote>
<blockquote>M. Balakirev—who sincerely loves you.<ref>From Balakirev, 30 March 1869</ref></blockquote>

Tchaikovsky was too self-critical not to see the truth behind Balakirev's comments. He accepted Balakirev's criticism, and the two continued to correspond. (Tchaikovsky later destroyed the score of ''Fatum''. The score was reconstructed posthumously from the orchestral parts.)<ref name="btmm46">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 46.</ref> Balakirev remained suspicious of anyone with a formal conservatory training but clearly recognized Tchaikovsky's great talents.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove Russian Masters'', 157–158.</ref> Tchaikovsky liked and admired Balakirev. However, as he told his brother Anatoly, "I never feel quite at home with him. I particularly don't like the narrowness of his musical views and the sharpness of his tone."

Balakirev suggested Tchaikovsky write a piece based on [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. Tchaikovsky was having difficulties writing an opera entitled ''[[Undina (Tchaikovsky)|Undine]]'', which he would eventually destroy. Though he complained, "I'm completely burned out," Balakirev persisted, as was his manner. Balakirev wrote suggestions about the structure of ''Romeo and Juliet'', giving details of the type of music required in each section, and even opinions on which keys to use.<ref>Holden, 74.</ref>

Balakirev had suggested his own overture ''King Lear'' as a model for ''Romeo''—a prudent move, since he had seen Tchaikovsky's weakness in writing in an unstructured musical form in ''Fatum''. ''King Lear'' is not a symphonic poem in the manner of [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]]. It is a tragic overture in [[sonata form]] along the line of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s overtures, relying more on the dramatic potential of sonata form rather than on a literary program. Thus, Balakirev had transformed ''King Lear'' into an instrumental drama and now offered it as a model to Tchaikovsky.<ref>Maes, 64.</ref> While basing ''Romeo and Juliet'' on ''King Lear'' was Balakirev's suggestion, reducing the plot of the former to one central conflict and then combining it with the binary structure of sonata form was Tchaikovsky's idea. However, executing that plot in the music we know today came only after two radical revisions.<ref>Maes, 73–74.</ref>

[[Image:Balakirev1860s CuiIP 73 600.jpg|thumb|left|180px|Mily Balakirev around the time Tchaikovsky met him.]]

===First version===
In the first version of ''Romeo and Juliet'', the development section contained an opening [[fugato]] and a confrontation of the two themes—exactly what an academically trained composer might be expected to produce. While Balakirev responded to the love theme by writing Tchaikovsky, "I play it often, and I want very much to hug you for it",<ref>Quoted in Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874'', 180–181, 183–184.</ref> he also discarded many of the early drafts Tchaikovsky sent him—the opening, for instance, sounded more like a [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]] [[quartet]] than the [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] [[chorale]] he had suggested initially—and the piece was constantly in the mail between Moscow and St. Petersburg, going to Tchaikovsky or Balakirev.<ref name="Maes, 74">Maes, 74.</ref>

Tchaikovsky accepted some, but not all, of Balakirev's nagging, and completed the work, dedicating it to Balakirev.  The first performance on March 16, 1870, was hindered by a sensational court case surrounding the conductor, Tchaikovsky's friend [[Nikolai Rubinstein]], and a female student. The court had found against the eminent musician the previous day, and this incited a noisy demonstration in his favour when he appeared on the concert platform, which proved much more interesting to the audience than the new overture. The result was not encouraging as a premiere for ''Romeo and Juliet''.<ref>Weinstock, 69.</ref>  Tchaikovsky said of the premiere:

: "After the concert we dined.... No one said a single word to me about the overture the whole evening.  And yet I yearned so for appreciation and kindness."<ref>Kamien 254.</ref>

===Second version===
The initial failure of ''Romeo and Juliet'' induced Tchaikovsky to fully accept Balakirev's criticisms and rework the piece. It also forced Tchaikovsky to reach beyond his musical training and rewrite much of the music into the form it is known today. This included the choice of leaving the love theme out of the [[musical development|development]] section, saving its confrontation with the first theme (the conflict of the Capulets and Montagues) for the second half of the recapitulation. In the exposition, the love theme remains shielded from the violence of the first theme. In the recapitulation the first theme strongly influences the love theme and ultimately destroys it. By following this pattern, Tchaikovsky shifts the true musical conflict from the development section to the recapitulation, where it climaxes in dramatic catastrophe.<ref name="Maes, 74"/>

Meanwhile, Rubinstein had become impressed with Tchaikovsky's compositional talents in general and with ''Romeo and Juliet'' in particular. He arranged for the publishing house Bote and Bock to publish the piece in 1870. This was considered an accomplishment since Tchaikovsky's music was virtually unknown in Germany at the time. Balakirev thought Tchaikovsky was rushing ''Romeo and Juliet'' to press prematurely. "It is a pity that you, or rather Rubinstein, should have rushed the publication of the Overture," he wrote to the composer. "Although the new introduction is a decided improvement, there were other changes I had wanted you to make. I had hoped that for the sake of your future compositions, this one would remain in your hands somewhat longer." Balakirev closed by hoping that [[P. Jurgenson]] would sometime agree to bring out a "revised and improved version of the Overture."<ref name="wein70">Weinstock, 70.</ref> The second version was premiered in St. Petersburg on February 17, 1872, under [[Eduard Nápravník]].

===Third and final version===
In 1880, ten years after his first reworking of the piece, Tchaikovsky rewrote the ending and gave the piece the sub-title "Overture-Fantasia". It was completed by September 10, 1880, but did not receive its premiere until May 1, 1886, in [[Tbilisi]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] (then part of the Russian Empire), under [[Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov]].

This third and final version is the one that is now in the repertoire.  The earlier versions are performed occasionally as historical curiosities.

The third version is scored for an orchestra comprising piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets (in A), 2 bassoons + 4 horns (in F), 2 trumpets (in E), 3 trombones, tuba + timpani, cymbals, bass drum + harp, violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, and double basses.

==Reception==
At first ''Romeo and Juliet'' was not successful in Russia and Europe. It was received lukewarmly at its world premiere in March 1870.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 209.</ref> The work was hissed when [[Hans Richter (conductor)|Hans Richter]] conducted it in Vienna in November 1876; critic [[Eduard Hanslick]] excoriated the piece afterwards.<ref name="brown_crisis103">Brown, ''Crisis'', 103.</ref> The Paris premiere two weeks later, at the ''Concerts Populaires'' under [[Jules Pasdeloup]], went no better.<ref name="brown_crisis103"/> According to Tchaikovsky's colleague and friend [[Sergei Taneyev]], who attended the Paris performance, ''Romeo's'' lack of success there may have been due to Pasdeloup's failure to understand the music.<ref name="brown_crisis103"/> Despite this, several Parisian composers and musicians, including [[Camille Saint-Saëns]], appreciated the piece.<ref name="brown_crisis103"/>

One group that appreciated ''Romeo'' at once was the ''[[The Five (composers)|kuchka]]'' ("The Five"). Balakirev, now having the full score, wrote of their enthusiastic response and 'how delighted everyone is with your D-flat bit [the love theme]—including [[Vladimir Stasov]], who says: "There were five of you: now there are six!" The beginning and end are as strongly censured'—and, Balakirev added, needed rewriting. Still, such was the enthusiasm of the ''kuchka'' for ''Romeo'' that Balakirev was asked to play it every time they met. Eventually, he learned to play the piece from memory as a result of fulfilling their requests.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: Man and Music'', 49.</ref>

==In popular culture==
{{In popular culture|date=March 2023}}
The Overture's love theme has been  influentially used in many television series and movies such as ''[[Moonraker (film)|Moonraker]]'', ''[[Columbo]]'', ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'' (1927), ''[[Wayne's World]]'', ''[[Animaniacs]]'', ''[[Taz-Mania]]'', ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', ''[[Scrubs (TV series)|Scrubs]]'', ''[[Seeing Double (2003 film)|Seeing Double]]'', ''[[The Simpsons]]'', ''[[South Park]]'', ''[[Clueless (film)|Clueless]]'', ''[[A Christmas Story]]'', ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]]'', ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'', ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'', ''[[Sesame Street]]'', ''[[El Chavo]]'', ''[[The Three Musketeers (1948 film)|The Three Musketeers]]'', and ''[[The Ren & Stimpy Show]]'', among others.

Different variations of the love theme were also played in the original ''[[The Sims (video game)|The Sims]]'' video game, when two Sims successfully performed the "Kiss" interaction. How "powerful" the theme was depended on how compatible, or how in love, the interacting Sims were with each other.

Along with another Tchaikovsky piece, ''Dance of the Reed Flutes'' from the ballet ''[[The Nutcracker]]'', the ''Romeo and Juliet'' love theme was sampled at the same time to the song "Love, so Lovely" for the direct-to-video Disney film ''[[Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers]]''.

Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet ''[[Anna Karenina (Eifman)|Anna Karenina]]'', choreographed by [[Boris Eifman]].

{{listen
| filename     = Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet - Munch.wav
| title        = Romeo and Juliet Overture
| description  = Performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch, 1962
| format       = [[ogg]]
}}

The main theme of the overture to ''Romeo and Juliet'' was adapted in 1939 by bandleader [[Larry Clinton]] as popular song "Our Love" (lyrics by [[Buddy Bernier]] and Bob Emmerich) and recorded by Clinton and by [[Jimmy Dorsey]].<ref>William H. Young, Nancy K. Young. [https://books.google.com/books?id=4NO26n13V2YC&dq=clinton+Dorsey+%22Our+Love%22+Romeo+and+Juliet+Tchaikovsky&pg=PA59 ''Music of the Great Depression'']</ref>

Composer [[Walter Murphy]] arranged a disco version of the Overture-Fantasy on his 1979 album ''Walter Murphy's Discosymphony''.

Excerpts of the overture were played for the fireworks at the opening of [[APEC China 2014]] held in [[Beijing]] before the leaders of the [[Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation]].

==Bibliography==
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). {{Listed Invalid ISBN|0-393-07535-2}}.
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). {{ISBN|0-393-01707-9}}.
* Holden, Anthony, ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: [[Random House]], 1995). {{ISBN|0-679-42006-1}}.
* [[Roger Kamien|Kamien, Roger]]. ''Music : An Appreciation''.  Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition (August 1, 1997) {{ISBN|0-07-036521-0}}
* Maes, Francis, tr. [[Arnold J. Pomerans]] and Erica Pomerans, ''A History of Russian Music: From ''Kamarinskaya ''to'' Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of Calilfornia Press, 2002). {{ISBN|0-520-21815-9}}.
* Weinstock, Herbert, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944). ISBN n/a

==References==

{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* {{IMSLP2|work=Romeo_and_Juliet_%28Tchaikovsky%2C_Pyotr_Ilyich%29|cname=Romeo and Juliet}}
* [http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Romeo_and_Juliet Tchaikovsky Research]
{{Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}}
{{Romeo and Juliet}}{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Overtures by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]]
[[Category:Symphonic poems by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]]
[[Category:Fantasias (music)|Tchaikovsky]]
[[Category:Concert overtures]]
[[Category:Music based on Romeo and Juliet]]
[[Category:1872 compositions]]
[[Category:1880 compositions]]
[[Category:1869 compositions]]