Composers › Sergei Prokofiev › Programme note
Romeo and Juliet Suite
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
The Montagues and the Capulets
The Young Juliet
Masks
Romeo and Juliet
The Death of Tybalt
Romeo and Juliet before parting
Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb
The first movement, The Montagues and the Capulets, begins appropriately with the fateful succession of chords which accompany the Prince’s warning to the two warring families:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
The scene changes to the ball at the house of the Capulets, where the knights dance in aggressively heavy-footed rhythms and where Juliet dances with Paris to a graceful variant of the same Capulet theme, gliding with the flute on viola glissandi and turning in quietly expressive chromatic harmonies. The Young Juliet comes from slightly earlier in the ballet. It represents her in playful innocence, running in semiquavers with the violins and clapping her hands to staccato chords; and yet, as the clarinet indicates, she is not lacking in sentiment and, on the subject of her marriage to Paris, not unthoughtful either. Masks returns to the Capulets’ ball as Romeo and Mercutio make their masked entry, cautiously at first on quiet percussion and stealthy clarinet but then in increasingly bold melodic profile.
Romeo and Juliet, the ballet equivalent of the balcony scene, is set in a delicate nocturnal atmosphere created by harp and muted strings. Beginning hesitantly with Romeo’s theme on solo strings and Juliet’s nervous answer on flute, the dialogue develops in intensity on an arch of ecstatic melody which finally falls back into the nocturnal stillness. The cruelly contrasting Death of Tybalt, which intervenes at this point, actually embraces three episodes from the end of the second act - Mercutio’s ill-advised sword fight with Tybalt, Romeo’s angered reprisal on Tybalt with its fifteen fatal blows, and the dramatic finale in which the Capulets mourn Tybalt and swear vengeance on the Montagues.
Romeo and Juliet before parting incorporates four numbers from the third act - Juliet’s Chamber, Farewell before Parting, Interlude and Juliet alone. Like the balcony scene it has a broad central climax, which is approached in this case by the dawning of day with tremolando strings and lyrical birdsong, a horn call offering a fragment of the main theme of the central section, and a solo viola (or viola d’amore) recalling a tender melody from the balcony scene. Before the end of the movement tuba and double bass share the misgivings of Juliet’s “ill-divining soul.”
In Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb the misgivings become reality as the tuba theme appears high on first and second violins and is brought gradually nearer with the funeral procession, carried by horns or trombones and tuba. The love theme from the balcony scene reappears on lower strings and woodwind as Romeo dances with the (apparently) dead Juliet in his arms. Another outburst of despair is followed by the death of Juliet as a theme from Juliet as a Child is exposed in unsupported octaves high on first and second violins and just dies away.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “R & J excerpts/n.rtf”
The Montagues and the Capulets
The Young Juliet
Masks
Romeo and Juliet
The Death of Tybalt
Romeo and Juliet before parting
Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb
It is one of the many ironies of Soviet musical history that Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet - the one ballet on a Shakespearean theme with a regular place in the repertoire world-wide - was at first rejected by both the Kirov and the Bolshoi as undanceable. The composer’s immediate reaction to his disappointment was to compile two orchestral suites to demonstrate the quality of the score, above all the rhythmic and melodic attractions of the set-piece dances and the dramatic and psychological interest of the key scenes. Concert performances of the two suites (conducted by Prokofiev himself in 1936 and 1937 respectively) led to a staging of the ballet in Brno in 1938 and its first Russian production at the Kirov two years later.
Although those two suites are still popular in the concert hall and on record, they have the disadvantage - more significant now that the ballet itself is so familiar - that the various extracts do not appear in the same order as the events they represent in the story. A third suite, compiled from generally less interesting areas of the score in 1944, does not solve the problem. Conductors are free, however, to make their own selection: the seven movements chosen for this occasion - three from the first suite (Masks, Romeo and Juliet, The Death of Tybalt) and four from the second - are presented not exactly in chronological order but as near to that as is practically possible and in a more than usually convincing dramatic sequence.
The first movement, The Montagues and the Capulets, begins appropriately with the fateful succession of chords which accompany the Prince’s warning to the two warring families:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
The scene changes to the ball at the house of the Capulets, where the knights dance in aggressively heavy-footed rhythms and where Juliet dances with Paris to a graceful variant of the same Capulet theme, gliding with the flute on viola glissandi and turning in quietly expressive chromatic harmonies. The Young Juliet comes from somewhat earlier in the ballet. It represents her in playful innocence, running in semiquavers with the violins and clapping her hands to staccato chords; and yet, as the clarinet indicates, she is not lacking in sentiment and, on the subject of her marriage to Paris, not unthoughtful either. Masks returns to the Capulets’ ball as Romeo and Mercutio make their masked entry, cautiously at first on quiet percussion and stealthy clarinet but then in increasingly bold melodic profile.
Romeo and Juliet, the ballet equivalent of the balcony scene, is set in a delicate nocturnal atmosphere created by harp and muted strings. Beginning hesitantly with Romeo’s theme on solo strings and Juliet’s nervous answer on flute, the dialogue develops in intensity on an arch of ecstatic melody which finally falls back into the nocturnal stillness. The cruelly contrasting Death of Tybalt, which intervenes at this point, actually embraces three episodes from the end of the second act - Mercutio’s ill-advised sword fight with Tybalt, Romeo’s angered reprisal on Tybalt with its fifteen fatal blows, and the dramatic finale in which the Capulets mourn Tybalt and swear vengeance on the Montagues.
Romeo and Juliet before parting incorporates four numbers from the third act - Juliet’s Chamber, Farewell before Parting, Interlude and Juliet alone. Like the balcony scene it has a broad central climax, which is approached in this case by the dawning of day with tremolando strings and lyrical birdsong, a horn call offering a fragment of the main theme of the central section, and a solo viola (or viola d’amore) recalling a tender melody from the balcony scene. Before the end of the movement tuba and double bass share the misgivings of Juliet’s “ill-divining soul.”
In Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb the misgivings become reality as the tuba theme appears high on first and second violins and is brought gradually nearer with the funeral procession, carried by horns or trombones and tuba. The love theme from the balcony scene reappears on lower strings and woodwind as Romeo dances with the (apparently) dead Juliet in his arms. Another outburst of despair is followed by the death of Juliet as a theme from Juliet as a Child is exposed in unsupported octaves high on first and second violins and just dies away.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “R & J Suite”