Dances from Romeo and Juliet

arranged for viola and piano by Vadim Borissovsky

Introduction

The Young Juliet

The Death of Juliet

Mercutio

Prokofiev himself arranged no fewer than four suites from his Romeo and Juliet ballet music but none, unfortunately, for a solo string instrument. Vadim Borissovsky has to some extent compensated for that omission with his arrangement of a selection of items for viola and piano. As in all of the composer’s own suites – three for orchestra, one for piano – the order in which the movements are presented has been determined by structural considerations rather than their place in the story. Unlike any of Prokofiev’s, however, it does begin where the ballet begins with the Introduction to the first act. Instead of setting the scene in Shakespeare’s Renaissance Verona as one might expect, the Introduction floats straight into the erotic action on a lyrical fragment of melody associated with the most passionate episode in the ballet, Farewell before Parting in Act III. The rest of the Introduction is a character study of Juliet, including the delightfully innocent theme to be definitively introduced in The Young Juliet in Act I and a more sensuous one from Juliet’s Variation in the same scene.

The Young Juliet, introduced by a game of runs and leaps, also features the innocent theme already heard in the Introduction and, as Juliet expresses her reluctance to accept the hand of Paris, a slower middle section with a poignant melody which is to reappear in tragic circumstances in the next movement. Here, in The Death of Juliet, the closing episode of the ballet, Juliet awakens to the saddest of the group of melodies associated with her and, as it develops, finds Romeo dead beside her. She recalls their ecstatic Love Dance, though now only a ghostly echo of it, before embracing Romeo and, according to the stage directions, “dying slowly.” Since at one time Prokofiev intended to give the ballet a happy ending, the lively movement appended by Borissovsky –    a virtuoso acrobatic exercise for Mercutio’s “dancing shoes with nimble soles” – is not entirely out of place as a finale. Certainly, it is very effective in this particular context.