Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture

I can't say that I am the biggest fan of the Romeo and Juliet story, but Tchaikovsky certainly does a good job of showing the story in his Romeo and Juliet Overture. In the overture he includes special themes for characters and important events: the Friar Lawrence Theme, the Feud (or argument) Theme, the Love Theme, and Juliet's Theme (I'm not sure what happened to the Romeo Theme).

The Love theme gets used a lot in movies and commercials - you might just recognize it!

Composer: Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (born in 1840)
Title: Romeo and Juliet Overture






Right away you are going to hear the Friar Lawrence Theme.

5:43:  This is the Feud Theme. There is a huge difference between this theme and the other themes - this one sounds really angry, and you can almost hear different people yelling at each other.
7:03:  This is the Bridge Theme. You can tell you've found the Bridge Theme because after all that "yelling", it is suddenly very quiet (pp).
7:48:  This is the Love Theme. This is the really famous one. Movies often use this theme, but they usually take it from later in the piece, when it is a bit more dramatic.
8:06:  Here we are with the Juliet Theme. It has a lot of back-and-forth movement. I always picture her with a long dress and enormous sleeves when I hear her theme.
9:00: We're back at the Love Theme.


Now that Tchaikovsky has introduced all the themes, he's going to mix them up. This is going to add a lot of excitement to the piece!

11:08:  We're back at the Feud Theme.
11:55:  Here's the Friar Lawrence Theme again - only it's disguised a little bit this time.
12:26:  Tchaikovsky is using a bit of everything now - he's throwing around the different themes between different instruments.

Tchaikovsky is getting towards the end of his piece now - he's going to play the different themes again one more time, just to wrap things up.

13:00:  Here we are again with the Feud Theme.
13:37:  Here comes Juliet again - only she's moving a little faster this time.
14:11:  And just in case you forgot, here is the Love Theme again. This is the part they love to use for movies. But just wait! At 15:47, the Love Theme gets interrupted by the Feud and Friar Lawrence.

We're almost there! Tchaikovsky is going to add a fancy ending piece called a coda to finish things off.

17:00:  We're back to the Love Theme - only, this time, it sounds much sadder. This is for after Romeo and Juliet have died. Tchaikovsky plays with this theme right until the end of the overture. At the end, he uses big drums - I think it really helps show that there is not a happy ending to this story!

And there you have it! I hope that this very detailed description helped walk you through this work!

Happy Birthday Tchaikovsky!

Today is Tchaikovsky's 170th birthday - a milestone for even the best of us! Some of you have had the pleasure of listening to his music through our composer series. For those of you who haven't, today would be a wonderful day to put on Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, or The Nutcracker Suite.

Below is the finale from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; it definitely shares the stage with Beethoven's symphonies and Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries in terms of exciting pieces of music. Listen for the massive tempo changes, the "canons", and the church bells. The first time I heard this piece live was when the VSO performed it at Deer Lake Park; they used real (though not loaded) canons and set off fireworks during the last moments of the piece. This version doesn't have all of that, but it is quite amazing. Enjoy!