By age 15, Mendelssohn had composed a dozen string symphonies, numerous concertos for one or two instruments and a full catalog of chamber and vocal works. In 1826 he first become acquainted with the Romantic German translation of Shakespeare by August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) – Germans thought it better than the original. Then, at 16, he amazed the world with two masterpieces: the Octet, Op. 20, which was quickly followed by the Overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21. The Overture immediately became spectacularly popular and was performed repeatedly throughout northern Europe.

Sixteen years later, in 1842, Mendelssohn was invited by Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, to compose the rest of the incidental music for a Berlin production of Ein Sommernachtstraum. By using themes from the overture as a basis for the later sections, as well as recapturing the airy style of the earlier orchestration, Mendelssohn was able to make the music sound like a seamless whole.

Scherzo. Entr’acte between Acts I and II: Mendelssohn depicts the fairy world, gossamer light, but with hints of danger from the roguish Puck, “that merry wanderer of the night.” Phrases from the Scherzo interrupt Puck’s soliloquy.

Nocturne. The entr’acte between Acts III and IV: Horns and bassoons describe the magic of the wood and the lovers’ enchanted sleep.

The popularization of Shakespeare by the French Romantics in the beginning of the nineteenth century created an impact nothing short of overwhelming. Like most matters artistic in France, it also created controversy. Early translations, all in rhyming couplets, adapted the plays to Ancient Greek dramatic constraints traced back to Aristotle’s Poetics. The three “unities” required that plays take place in the same location, within 24 hours, with no subplots nor – gods forbid – mixing of comedy and tragedy. Gone, therefore, were many of the qualities that for English theatergoers and readers make Shakespeare Shakespeare.

On the other hand, for Victor Hugo, the father of French literary Romanticism, and Berlioz, Shakespeare was the nearest thing to God. Nearly all of Berlioz’s music was based on or inspired by literary or personal narrative. He used a number of Shakespeare’s plays as texts or models for his music: the opera Béatrice et Bénédict (from Much Ado about Nothing), Overture to King Lear, Marche funèbre pour la dernière scène d’Hamlet, La mort d’Ophélie, and Roméo et Juliette.

In selecting Romeo and Juliet, Berlioz said that the play belonged to the body of secular scripture that every educated man should know by heart. In the process he continued to develop new ways of combining music and poetry, creating a “dramatic symphony, with chorus, soloists, and a prologue in choral recitative, after Shakespeare’s drama.”

The instrumental selections from Roméo et Juliette are mini-tone poems, closely coordinated with the poetry. They are almost all through composed, Berlioz’s equivalence to Shakespeare’s non-strophic and usually unrhymed blank verse.

For Berlioz, the arch-Romantic, Romeo and Juliet represent the ideal of ultimate, all-embracing love. In a preface to the score he wrote that for the Love Scene he would have felt hampered by words, even Shakespeare’s words, preferring the freedom of instrumental music. He considered the music he wrote for this scene as among his best.

The plays of William Shakespeare were one of the major literary influences on composers of the nineteenth century, including Tchaikovsky, who wrote fantasy overtures based on three of them. Two of these, Hamlet and The Tempest, are seldom heard today, but the third, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, has become one of the most popular orchestral compositions ever. The psychological drama of youthful passion and thwarted love consummated in death was an ideal theme for Tchaikovsky, resonating through many of his subsequent works.

Composed in 1869, Romeo and Juliet was one of Tchaikovsky’s earliest orchestral works, written at the suggestion of his friend and mentor, the composer Mily Balakirev, who wrote out a detailed scenario for the composer to follow. But Balakirev criticized the results, especially the lack of any musical reference to Friar Lawrence: “You need something here along the lines of a Liszt chorale…with old Catholic character,” he wrote the composer, who sat down to rewrite the work to his mentor’s satisfaction.

A second version, published in 1871, still did not satisfy Balakirev, and Tchaikovsky sat on the score for nearly ten years before bringing out the final version in 1880, the one we are most familiar with. Although Balakirev was still hypercritical, especially of the coda, by then Tchaikovsky had enough self-confidence to resist him. He always regarded the overture highly and once referred to it as his best orchestral work.

Tchaikovsky’s Overture is not a tone poem; there is no attempt to tell the story of the doomed lovers, only to present the major themes of the play, love and violence, in musical guise. The chorale-like introduction recalls the serenity of Friar Laurence’s cell, followed by the Friar’s theme. The composer transformed the ambience from the Roman Catholicism of the play into a Russian Orthodox modal melody in the woodwinds. But this serenity is broken by a fiery Allegro representing the recurrence of the old enmity between the warring families. Finally, muted violas and English horn introduce the love theme.

In the development, the tender love music is harshly interrupted by the furious outbursts of street brawls, combined and contrasted with Friar Lawrence’s theme. Although the love theme overcomes the violence, it ultimately fades away into a despairing lament.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com