5 Movements from Roméo et Juliette

a dramatic symphony after the tragedy by Shakespeare

Introduction

Allegro fugato

Romeo alone and the Capulet ball

Andante malinconico e sostenuto - Allegro -

Larghetto espressivo - Allegro

Love Scene

Allegretto - Adagio

Queen Mab Scherzo

Prestissimo - Allegretto - Prestisssimo

Romeo at the Capulet tomb

Allegro agitato e disperato -

Largo - Allegro vivace ed appassionato assai

The story of Berlioz’s relationship with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whose Ophelia and Juliet so enchanted him in Paris in 1827 and who became his wife six years later, would not be out of place among the most extravagant examples of sentimental fiction. It was more than just a romantic episode in the composer’s life, however. The whole experience – the “thunderbolt” discovery of Shakespeare by way of the Charles Kemble company’s productions (in English) at the Théâtre de l’Odéon, the passion aroused in him by the pathos of Ophelia and Juliet, his projection of their poetic aura onto the actress who so beautifully embodied them – was a significant event from every biographical and musical point of view. Next to his reverence for the Beethoven symphonies, it was one of the most profoundly formative factors in Berlioz’s artistic development.

Berlioz had been planning some kind of musical realization of the Romeo and Juliet theme for a long time, probably since he first saw the play. But other major projects intervened, including the Symphonie fantastique (during a period of disillusionment with Harriet), Lélio (part of his resumed courtship strategy), Harold en Italie, Benvenuto Cellini, and the Grande Messe des morts. So it wasn’t until 1839 that he was able to apply himself wholeheartedly to the project. The immediate stimulus was a gift of 20,000 francs from Paganini, who had commissioned Harold en Italie in 1834 but had rejected it and had realised what a great work it was only when he first heard it in Paris at the end of 1838.

This subvention of conscience money set Berlioz free from other worries and, starting with Romeo alone in January 1839, he completed his “dramatic symphony” less than eight months later. Fortunately perhaps, the question of his wisdom in casting his interpretation of Romeo and Juliet as a kind of choral symphony, modelled to some extent on Beethoven’s Ninth, need not concern us on this occasion: the extracts selected for this performance are the five purely orchestral movements in the work.

Introduction

The opening Allegro fugato represents, according to the composer, the tumult caused on the streets of Verona by the fighting between Montagues and Capulets and, on the solemn entry of lower brass and horns, the intervention of the Prince with his grim warning to the feuding families.

Romeo alone and the Capulet ball

The second extract, a symphonic Allegro with a slow introduction, finds Romeo alone at first and, according to the tempo direction (Andante malinconico e sostenuto) in melancholy mood. There is no equivalent for this episode in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: like several other apparent anomalies in Berlioz’s account of the story, it derives from the Garrick version of the play that the Kemble company presented in Paris in 1827. In this case Romeo’s adolescent fantasies are fixed not on “fair Rosaline” but on Juliet, who is presented as his first love.

As is vividly indicated by the unaccompanied violin line, so uncertain in metre and tonality, Romeo is wandering aimlessly and disconsolately round the Capulet palace before the ball. A vague anticipation of the beginning of Tristan und Isolde – the 26-year-old Richard Wagner was in the audience at the first performance of Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Conservatoire – the tentative violin line gives way to a more firmly defined woodwind theme which is then developed by the strings. After a fairly brief and distant pre-echo of the Capulet festivities, the tempo drops to Larghetto espressivo for an even more poetic melody on an oboe expressing Romeo’s love for Juliet. The ball itself is a brilliant episode of lively dance music which is combined at its climax with the oboe melody stoutly sustained on woodwind and brass. In spite of fugal hints of Montague-Capulet strife, a later and more intimate allusion to the oboe melody suggests that the fatal attraction is mutual.

Love Scene

Berlioz’s Scène d’amour, the equivalent to Shakespeare’s balcony scene, is the most eloquent vindication of his contention that “instrumental language is richer, more varied, less restricted” than vocal word-setting and “incomparably more potent.” It is a “serene night in the silent and deserted garden of the Capulet’s house,” as we hear in the magically atmospheric introduction. The protagonists are Romeo, represented by an ardent melody on horn and cellos, and Juliet, represented - after Romeo’s cello recitative and some initial indications of alarm - by a radiant inspiration on flute and cor anglais. Neither of these is presented as the main theme, however: the rondo shape assumed by the movement from this point on is based on a symbolic and highly melodious union of features from both the Romeo and the Juliet themes. Surely the greatest of Berlioz’s slow movements, this Adagio clearly owes much to Beethoven but just as clearly anticipates both Wagner and Tchaikovsky.

Queen Mab Scherzo

Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech -

…She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone…

occupies no more than forty lines in Shakespeare’s text and, for all its verbal virtuosity, is not an essential item in the story. As material for a symphonic scherzo on the other hand, it was irresistible: Berlioz had drawn the passage to Mendelssohn’s attention as long as eight years earlier and had regretted it ever since, fearing that the master of the elfin scherzo would get in first. Berlioz’s Queen Mab is a magically scored Prestissimo “as thin of substance as the air” up to the melodious little serenade in the middle. On its return it assumes a more substantial sound as Mab performs her Shakespearian mischief. A soldier dreams of horn calls and percussion cannonades and utters a snore on the lowest note available to the bassoon. Mab finally evaporates to the unreal sound of antique cymbals.

Tomb Scene

The most significant departure from original in the Garrick version of Romeo and Juliet is that in the tomb scene Juliet wakes up in time for one last dialogue with Romeo before they both expire. Unauthentic inspiration though it is, it provided Berlioz with the material for one of the most daringly dramatic of all his orchestral pieces.

The scene begins with vivid suggestions of Romeo’s desperate efforts to enter the Capulet tomb and, registered by quietly mysterious wind and string chords alternating with silence, the awesome atmosphere he finds inside it. Enshrined at the heart of the piece is Romeo’s “Invocation” as he contemplates Juliet’s apparently dead body - a lament scored in the sombre colour of lower woodwind and horn in unison and including a poignant allusion to Juliet’s theme from the Love Scene. Believing her to be dead, he swallows poison to the pre-Wagnerian accompaniment of a descending chromatic tremolando on cellos. So when Juliet wakes up to the scarcely perceptible sound of a solo clarinet, it is too late and the following frenzied celebration, with another allusion to the Love Scene, is in vain. Romeo’s death is signalled by quietly wriggling basses and, after a shrill outcry on unaccompanied violins, Juliet stabs herself, her breath ebbing away to a sustained diminuendo on a solitary oboe.