Romeo and Juliet Suite
Sergei Prokofiev
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, And the continuance of their parents’ rage, Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
William Shakespeare, Prologue to Romeo and Juliet
There have, over time, been many musical responses to Shakespeare’s tragedy. Best known among these are Hector Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet Symphony, Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet, Romeo and Juliet (1935-36), and Leonard Bernstein’s musical, West Side Story. Less well known is the fact that the second movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 18, no. 1, was inspired by the tomb scene of the play.
In Prokofiev’s original scenario for his ballet, the composer amazed and scandalized Russian Shakespeare “purists” by permitting the lovers to survive, thus creating a happy ending. His response to this criticism was typically terse for him: “Living people can dance, the dying cannot.” The dancers also raised their own objections to the score, complaining that some of its music was inaudible, and thus undanceable. Eventually Prokofiev capitulated, and his 1939 revision of the score reinstated the tragic conclusion, as well as reinforcing its orchestration to enable the dancers to hear the music. A film version of the ballet followed some years later. Audiences of orchestral concerts are familiar with the two suites that Prokofiev extracted from the ballet.
The movements to be heard on this performance by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra represent Maestro St. Clair’s preferred ordering of the music from the two suites:
#1 Montagues and Capulets (Suite 2, no. 1)
#2 Juliet the Young Girl (Suite 2, no. 2)
#3 Minuet (Suite 1, no. 4)
#4 Masks (Suite 1, no. 5)
#5 Balcony Scene (Suite 1, no. 6)
#6 Tybalt’s Death (Suite 1, no. 7)
#7 Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb (Suite 2, no. 7)
Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story”
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, MA on August 25, 1918 and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. His career centered on musical composition and conducting, but he was also a gifted pianist. He preferred to call himself simply “musician.” Bernstein was, as his biography in the New Grove Dictionary puts it, “the most famous and successful native-born figure in the history of classical music in the USA”. His influence on a generation of musicians was immeasurable. Furthermore, his body of work successfully spanned and connected the sometimes disparate worlds of the concert music and musical theater. His legacy continues through his music, recordings, videos, and many books. His Symphonic Dances from West Side Story is the work of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who in 1961 excerpted and orchestrated music from the popular Broadway musical under the guidance of the composer. The Symphonic Dances enjoyed its first performance on February 13, 1961, with Lukas Foss conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, in a pension fund gala concert entitled “A Valentine for Leonard Bernstein.” The work is scored for 3 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets plus E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, large percussion section, harp, piano, celesta, and strings. The last performance of Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by the Winston-Salem Symphony took place on the “Romeo and Juliet” concert during the 2005-06 season.
Leonard Bernstein’s enduring musical, West Side Story, opened at New York’s Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957. The text by Stephen Sondheim (after A. Laurents) is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with the feuding Capulets and Montagues now represented by two rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, and the scenario removed from Verona to the streets of Manhattan. Among the popular tunes from West Side Story are “Maria,” “One Hand, One Heart,” “America,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “Somewhere A Place for Us.” The show successfully combines jazz, lyricism, Latin-American rhythms, and ballet.
Bernstein had the good fortune to work with the superb choreographer, Jerome Robbins, for West Side Story. The two artists had previously worked together in 1944 on Fancy Free and again in 1946 on Facsimile. On the Town (1944) and Wonderful Town (1952) were earlier musicals by Bernstein that used dancing as a central feature of their style. The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story were excerpted and orchestrated under the composer’s direction in 1961 by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal (who orchestrated the film version of the show), and have since become a regular part of the repertoire of symphony orchestras. Audiences will recognize several musical themes and moments from West Side Story in the Symphonic Dances, including “Somewhere” and a Cha-Cha version of “Maria.” The orchestra gets to shout out the word “Mambo” during one of the dance sequences, and also gets to snap their fingers.