Shaking Up Shakespeare with Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet
The Best Moments
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, ballet in four acts
I'm Sergei Prokofiev, and here are the best moments of my ballet Romeo & Juliet. Here you'll hear the duel over Tybalt's death, where a playful dance turns ferocious and ends in fifteen massive thuds, and it's worth your time to feel how music alone can tell a story. On this site my fellow composers and I also teach you to recognize our pieces the moment they begin, so give the Trainer a go once you've listened.
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Ten Notes Walk Into a Ballroom
I open the Dance of the Knights with one enormous chord that uses ten of the twelve notes available, and it stands for the Prince's anger, which is a lot of notes to be angry with. Then the low brass start a heavy, stomping bass line, and the Capulets march into their ball like a family who wants every guest to notice them.
Please Keep Your Sneezes Down
I begin the Balcony Scene by hushing everything, with a harp and muted violins that tell you the night is very quiet. Then Romeo enters gently in the strings and Juliet answers with a graceful flute, which is about the politest way two people have ever said they like each other.
A Very Bad Morning After
I place the Death of Tybalt on the morning after Romeo and Juliet have secretly married, so you would expect everyone to be in a good mood. Instead the music turns fast and frenzied, with timpani and a cornet solo, and Mercutio even turns the duel into a farcical dance before the joke stops being funny.
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Did you enjoy walking through the best moments of Romeo & Juliet with me? I hope the music feels a little closer now, whether it was the stomping march of the knights, the hush of the balcony, or the fury of the duel. When I look back at this score, what stays with me is how much it went through before anyone heard it on a stage. The Bolshoi judged it undanceable, and the Kirov contract fell through as well. So I turned the music into orchestral suites, and the first one was heard in Moscow in 1936. The complete ballet only reached the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad in January 1940, and by then the music had already found its audience in the concert hall. There is still a lot left to discover. I first planned a happy ending, in which Juliet wakes in time to stop Romeo from drinking the poison, and I later restored Shakespeare's tragic ending. The orchestra also holds some unusual colors, such as mandolins, a viola d'amore and a tenor saxophone, and the suites and the piano pieces give you other ways to meet the same story. If you'd like to hear more, I invite you to click on the links provided and keep exploring Romeo & Juliet. I'd be glad to think of you listening again, and noticing something you missed the first time.