Romeo and Juliet, a fantasy overture based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, was Tchaikovsky’s first work after the works of the great British playwright and with it began the composer’s “Shakespearean line”.
The idea of composing this symphonic piece came from Mily Balakirev. According to Tchaikovsky’s friend Nikolai Kashkin, it emerged during a walk in May in 1869: “Balakirev, Tchaikovsky and I were immensely fond of long walks and sometimes would go on them together. I remember that on one of them Mily Alexeyevich suggested a plan for the Romeo and Juliet overture…”
Balakirev not only suggested the idea – he also wrote out an extremely detailed plan for the entire work including directions as to how the general idea, thematic material, tonal plan and composition of the emergent work should be developed. Tchaikovsky had no objection whatsoever to such detailed “instruction” from Balakirev, and executed it all precisely. One of the reason’s for the composer’s submissiveness could have been Tchaikovsky’s admiration for the singer Désirée Artôt, which, as it happens, emerged when he was writing the first version of the overture. Shakespeare’s plot immediately took hold in Tchaikovsky’s soul. Later a second version was written (1870) and, much later, a third (1880), which is what we know today.
Later Tchaikovsky intended to write an opera based on Romeo and Juliet. The idea, however, remained unfulfilled. But the Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture was the composer’s favourite dramatic work throughout his life. Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote his only Violin Concerto in 1878 when he was already an acclaimed composer having written his First Piano Concerto, four symphonies and operas (including Eugene Onegin). The Violin Concerto somewhat repeated the destiny of the First Piano Concerto as it was not immediately judged as it deserved to be. Today it is difficult to imagine that a work of such power, expressiveness and beauty did not immediately find an appreciative audience or performer. Initially Tchaikovsky had decided to write the Concerto for his friend and pupil Iosif Kotek, and then because of subsequent disagreements he offered it to the renowned violinist and teacher Leopold Auer. On seeing, however, that the latter “shelved” his work he dedicated the piece to Adolph Brodsky who was the first performer of the Concerto in Russia and abroad and who met with strong resistance from other musicians and sharply negative critical comments afterwards.
For one and a half centuries the main difficulty for the performer has been the extremely virtuoso nature of the Concerto. Today the main problem lies rather in the interpretation because offering a new treatment of such a famous and frequently performed work is a task that is definitely not for the fainthearted. The Symphonic Dances (1940) was Rachmaninoff’s last major work, composed once he had emigrated to America and three years after his Third Symphony. Initially the work had a somewhat different title – Fantastic Dances – and its three sections were entitled Noon, Twilight and Midnight. In the final version Rachmaninoff changed the titles and abandoned any programme names.
There is much that points to the fact that Symphonic Dances was the composer’s final work. Rachmaninoff was as if looking back, summing up the results of his own creative life. At the close of the first section (set to bell chimes) one can hear the there of the first section of the first movement of the First Symphony which had been defamed at the premiere but which the composer later would not allow to be performed. In the third section one can hear the theme Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”, a medieval Catholic chorale about the Day of Judgement), which can be found in many of Rachmaninoff’s works as an idée fixe and which reaches its climax here. And at the very end the violas and the snare drum reach the culmination with the slightly modified theme of Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost from Blessed Art Thou, O Lord, the ninth part of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, composed in 1915. From the title it follows that there could be a ballet version of the work. In actual fact, Rachmaninoff corresponded with the choreographer Michel Fokine, discussing the possibility of creating a stage version of his final work. Fokine’s death in 1942, however, prevented the idea from ever coming to fruition. |
