Shaking Up Shakespeare with Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet
Death of Tybalt
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, ballet in four acts
I'm Sergei Prokofiev, and I'm about to explain the Death of Tybalt from my ballet Romeo & Juliet. You'll hear a fast, frenzied duel driven by timpani and a cornet solo, and it's worth your time because it all happens the morning after Romeo and Juliet's secret wedding. On this site my fellow composers and I also teach you to recognize our pieces when you hear them, and you can test yourself in the Trainer whenever you like.
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Keep One Ear on the Drummer
Before you press play, I'd like you to listen for three things: the timpani, the cornet, and the way the orchestra never stops moving. The timpani are the big drums, and here they deliver heavy blows that you feel in your chest as much as you hear them. The cornet is a brass instrument that plays a solo, and when it steps forward you can follow it like a single voice calling out over a crowd. You don't need any music theory for this, because if you can tell fast from slow and loud from soft, the music will tell you the story on its own.A Title That Says It Plainly
I called it Death of Tybalt because that is exactly what happens on the stage, and a ballet has no words to explain it. It takes place the morning after Romeo and Juliet have secretly married, so the happiness of the wedding is still fresh when the quarrel breaks out. Tybalt kills Mercutio first, and then Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, so this is the moment when everything turns. I wanted the title to tell the audience where they are before the first note, so that the music could spend its energy on the feeling.Why I Left the Rulebook at Home
Choosing the form for this piece was an adventure, because a strict textbook form would have made a duel wait politely for its themes to come back. So I let the form follow the action instead, with each scene leading straight into the next like links in a chain. I'll only name the four sections here: Mercutio's mocking dance, the frenzied duel, the heavy thuds, and the funeral march. Each one gets its own paragraph now, so you will know what to listen for as the story moves along.Section 1: Mercutio Does a Little Dance
The piece begins with Mercutio, who turns the duel into a farcical dance before he is stabbed. The mood is light and teasing at first, as if the whole quarrel were a game that nobody could possibly lose. Listen for how playful the music sounds, because that cheerfulness is what makes the next moment so hard to hear. Once Mercutio is stabbed, the joke is over, and the music stops pretending that anything here is funny.Section 2: Nobody Is Joking Any More
Now the music becomes fast and frenzied, and it hardly stops to breathe, which is what people mean when they call it perpetual motion. This is where the timpani and the cornet solo come in, and you can hear the anger rise as the swords keep swinging. The tempo stays urgent and the mood stays ferocious, so there is no place for the listener to rest. I wanted you to feel that Romeo has been pushed past the point where he can still walk away.Section 3: Fifteen Thuds and Then Silence
Then Romeo defeats Tybalt, and I mark it with fifteen massive orchestral thuds. You can count them if you like, and I think counting them makes each one land a little harder. After the frantic motion of the duel, these slow and heavy blows feel like the whole world coming to a halt. The mood shifts from fury to shock, and this is the moment when Romeo understands what he has done.Section 4: The March Nobody Wanted
The thuds are followed by a searing funeral march, and it is the saddest part of the piece. The pace is slow and solemn, and the music that was so quick a moment ago now moves as if it were carrying a great weight. This march mourns Tybalt, but it also hints at the sorrow that is coming for the lovers, since Romeo is about to be banished. That is how the four sections tell one story: a game, a fight, a blow, and a lament.Your Turn at the Play Button
Now it's your turn to hear it for yourself, so press play and let the music carry you along. While you listen, you might remember what we talked about: the teasing dance, the frenzied duel, the fifteen thuds and the march. You don't have to catch everything on the first hearing, because the story is there even if you only follow the mood. I hope this music thrills you as much as it thrilled me when I wrote it.---
So here we are at the end of the Death of Tybalt, and I find myself thinking about how quickly a morning of joy can turn into a day of grief. Romeo and Juliet had only just been married in secret, and by the end of this duel everything they hoped for has begun to slip away. I wrote the music to carry that sudden change, and I hope you could feel it in the drums, in the cornet and in the funeral march that follows. Did you enjoy this listen guide to Romeo & Juliet's Death of Tybalt? It makes me happy to think that you may now hear this scene a little differently from the way you did before. It's a curious thing that the Bolshoi once judged this score undanceable, and yet the first complete performance of the ballet came at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad in 1940. Music sometimes needs a little time before people are ready for it. There is still a lot more to discover in Romeo & Juliet. The ballet holds many other scenes, and I also turned much of the music into orchestral suites, so the same story can be heard in quite different ways. Even the ending has its own history, and I will leave you to find out what I first planned for the lovers. If you'd like to keep going, please click on the links provided and explore Romeo & Juliet further. I'd be glad to have you along for the rest of the journey.