Introduction
As the feast day of St Valentine approaches, most will agree
that music is “the food of love.” The
thought is given extra emphasis by the bard of Stratford on Avon with the
addition of the phrase – “give me excess of
it...”
Encore, we want more.
What may be less well known is the fact that
Shakespeare’s works have inspired more than 20,000 pieces of music. In this season of love, the drama of Romeo and
Juliet provides a topical example.
Let the playwright himself set the scene:-
“Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.”
No story of star-crossed lovers is more romantic than - or
as tragic as - Shakespeare’s drama Romeo and Juliet. To recount this heart-rending saga of
unattainable love, the bard filled his play with lyric poetry. It is replete with melodious lines which are
now part of everyday speech.
Dwell on these haunting cameos:-
“What's
in a name? that which we call a rose
By
any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Parting
is such sweet sorrow
that
I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.”
"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
"But soft. What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun."
"O Romeo Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
It is no wonder that composers of great music have been
inspired to retell the story symphonically.
Outstanding examples include two Russian composers (one in the
nineteenth century the other in the twentieth) who rose to the challenge of
interpreting Romeo and Juliet musically.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840-1893
Just over 300 years after Shakespeare wrote this, his
tenth play, Tchaikovsky composed a single-movement piece. By coincidence, the music composer and the poetic
bard were about the same age when they told the story.
It was the composer Mily Balakirev who gave Tchaikovsky
the idea of taking the English playwright’s work and setting it to music.
The context for Balakirev’s suggestion is
explained by one commentator thus:-
“In the Romantic age which
idolized Shakespeare, the themes of love and conflict in Romeo and Juliet were
seized upon by composers as diverse as Berlioz’s dramatic 1839 symphony and
Gounod’s 1867 five-act opera.”
To understand Tchaikovsky’s drive, a longer-term
perspective sets the scene.
A major
influence was the impact of his mother’s death when he was 14.
In the words of one commentator, the bereavement drove him
to express himself through music.
“After graduating from
musical studies in St Petersburg Conservatoire in 1865, he taught theory at the
Moscow Conservatoire where he came under Balakirev’s influence. Not just did he suggest (in summer 1869) that
Tchaikovsky write an extended overture based on Romeo and Juliet, but he
proposed a formal shape with a dark introduction (for Friar Lawrence in his
cell), a B minor theme for the feuding Montagues and Capulets, and a love theme
in the distant key of D flat major.”
Tchaikovsky followed his mentor’s instructions to the
letter.
However, when the work premiered
in March 1870, public indifference led him to revise it. When re-premiered two years later,
acclamation replaced indifference.
In 1880, following the successes of his 4th
symphony, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the Violin Concerto, he revised it again
to the form of the 20 minute Fantasy Overture we enjoy today.
“The opening was
lengthened with a new chorale for clarinets and bassoons; the tension greater
as the music builds up to the sword-fight of the Montagues and Capulets. The sensuous love theme which is scored for
cor anglais and muted violas remained unaltered. The central section was radically altered to
create more tension. The idea of
unattainable love crushed by fate would be at the centre of so many works which
followed. After all the drama and feuding,
the music sustains a level of uncertainty until the last moment, when it ends
in death.”
Opinion
Given Tchaikovsky’s attempted suicide after the failure
of his brief marriage in 1877, one can only speculate as to how, if at all, his
alleged homosexuality affected his heroic perspective on a classic heterosexual
love-story.
His emotions and will-power
have bequeathed us a magnificent legacy of musical beauty.
I love the chorale’s background strings and mellifluous
harp. In the battle scenes, I can hear
the clashing of swords.
The central
section creates an atmosphere of beauty and conflict, hope despair and joy all interspersed,
searing emotions and raw power, all vividly expressed.
The commentator Chalmers sums it up
“All the components
fitted into place – a slow introduction, two contrasting ideas (conflict/love),
development (escalating antagonism between Montagues and Capulets), climax
(lovers’ deaths) and coda.”
No wonder that the Fantasy Overture is considered as
Tchaikovsky’s first masterpiece.
Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Born two years before Tchaikovsky’s death, Prokofiev
composed his version of Romeo and Juliet - like his compatriot Tchaikovsky - on
the suggestion of colleagues.
Adrian Piotrovsky, a playwright, play-director, and
director of the Leningrad Film studio, together with the theatre director
Sergey Radlov suggested the subject of Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev in 1934.
According to the commentator David Nice, in 1934 the drive towards
reinstating western as well as Russian classics was in full swing, with Radlov
one of its advocates.
Ten or more years
older than Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky at the time of composition, Prokofiev
composed the ballet in September 1935.
Mr Nice explains
“Radlov had excellent Shakespearean
credentials which included a production of Othello as well as Romeo & Juliet. Radlov wanted to keep too much Shakespeare
while the literary Prokofiev took his time steering his collaborator towards a
workable framework – at which time politics overtook the partnership.”
This is a reference to Stalin’s purges later in the decade
when, for example, the State Academic Theatre became the Kirov and the Romeo
& Juliet project passed into the hands of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre.
In the summer 1935 Prokofiev worked with
great speed on the ballet at the Bolshoi’s country retreat. Despite his endeavours, when he played the
completed score in October 1935 conservatives doubted whether the score was
danceable.
Another issue which emerged at the 1936 auditions was
Prokofiev-Radlov’s proposed happy ending.
Eventually and inevitably, Prokofiev reverted to Shakespeare’s script.
Moreover, following the criticism about the
ballet’s dance-ability, Prokofiev had worked with the choreographer Leonid
Lavrovsky to revise certain elements.
The outcome was that (after a premiere in the Czech town
of Brno in 1938) the first Soviet performance of the completed ballet did not
take place until January 1940, the venue being the Kirov theatre.
One theory is that the delay in premiering
the ballet may have been due to fear in the musical and theatrical community in
the aftermath of two Pravda editorials criticising Shostakovich and other so-called
"degenerate modernists," including Piotrovsky.
It was only then that the music’s fame soared, eventually
forming the basis of three popular suites - the concert-hall version.
The suites comprise of 20 pieces, lasting for
70 exhilarating minutes.
Flash back to 1918 when Prokofiev had left revolutionary
Russia for America. He arrived in New
York to be welcomed as a celebrity.
“He was never very happy
there, however, and composed little apart from the Third Piano Concerto and the
operas The Love for Three Oranges and The Fiery Angel.”
From 1932, Prokofiev's visits to Russia became more
frequent, and in the spring of 1936 he returned for good with his wife and sons.
The pieces he composed during this
transitional period show new warmth of expression, and are among his most celebrated
works, including Lieutenant Kijé, the Romeo and Juliet ballet, the Second
Violin Concerto, and Peter and the Wolf.
Opinion
Innovation is always welcome, which is why I like the
addition of the tenor saxophone to the standard orchestral instrumentation.
This adds a unique sound to the orchestra. It is used both in solo and as part of the
ensemble. Prokofiev also used the
cornet, viola d’amore and mandolins, adding an Italianate flavour to the music.
Just as in listening to the music of Tchaikovsky’s
ballets The Nutcracker Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, I can easily visualise
the twinkle-toes of nimble ballerinas against the music, such as in The Street
Awakens and in Juliet the Young Girl. I
adore the sweetness of other sections, particularly Gavotte.
In contrast, I can detect menace and foreboding in the ballet’s
best known piece, The Dance of the Knights.
This theme is developed and varied in later sections of the ballet. Its title in the second orchestral suite is
Montagues and Capulets. David Nice
describes its orchestration of violence thus:-
“Its striding arpeggios
frame the eerie ritual of the suitor Paris’s dance with a reticent Juliet.”
Incidentally, this score is used by Sunderland Football
Club when they run onto the pitch. It is
also the theme of The Apprentice on BBC television.
Prokofiev’s full ballet is seven times longer than
Tchaikovsky’s overture. It consists of 4
Acts, 52 pieces of music, and lasts for two hours and nineteen minutes.
Conclusions
Two compositions with different takes, and both inspired
by Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
Both composers capture the
play’s contrasting moods, the soaring chords of emotions ranging from
passionate love to violent fury, as well as the percussive loudness and pain of
conflict.
A universal story, relevant
always.
Equivocal perhaps, but I
love both. Why? These are works of inspired genius.
One or other – or both - the perfect gift for St
Valentine’s Day.
If you’re lucky, you may be able to attend a live
performance of Romeo and Juliet.
The
Ulster Orchestra’s
unmissable Valentines night programme features Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture
among a number of other beautiful Romantic classics.
From Russia with Love.
©Michael
McSorley 2015
