![]() ![]() The English horn and viola represent Romeo, while the flutes represent Juliet. The love theme signifies the couple first meeting and the scene at Juliet's balcony. The action suddenly slows, the key changing from B minor to D-flat (as suggested by Balakirev) and we hear the opening bars of the "love theme", the third strand, passionate and yearning in character but always with an underlying current of anxiety. The forceful irregular rhythms of the street music point ahead to Igor Stravinsky and beyond. There are agitated, quick sixteenth notes. The introduction is chorale-like.Įventually a single first inversion B minor chord is passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B minor, the agitated theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight, depicted by crashing cymbals. The Friar Laurence theme is heard in F minor, with plucked strings, before ending up in E minor. Here there is a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. The first strand, written in F-sharp minor, following Mily Balakirev's suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly Friar Laurence. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story. An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown depicting Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony sceneĪlthough styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata form with an introduction and an epilogue. ![]()
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