Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a musical work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, subtitled Overture-Fantasy, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare, and he also wrote works on The Tempest and Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet, unlike Tchaikovsky's other major compositions, does not have an opus number. Although styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall... more

Romeo and Juliet is a musical work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, subtitled Overture-Fantasy, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare, and he also wrote works on The Tempest and Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet, unlike Tchaikovsky's other major compositions, does not have an opus number. 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 Balakirev’s suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly Friar Laurence. Here there is a flavour of Russian Orthodoxy, but also a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. Eventually a single B minor chord with a D natural in the bass passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B minor, the... less