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66-401: Like the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet , Tchaikovsky wrote Manfred at the behest of the nationalist composer Mily Balakirev , who provided him the program, which had a long history. Critic Vladimir Stasov had written it and sent it to Balakirev in 1868 hoping the latter would write such a symphony. But Balakirev had felt unable to carry out the project and instead had at first forwarded

132-576: A fugue , which is by its nature academic and undramatic, to depict the horde's discovery of Manfred within their midst. The result, though in many ways becoming a condensed recapitulation of the latter half of the first movement, becomes a fragmented movement with musical disruption and non-sequiturs , ending with the Germanic chorale depicting Manfred's death scene. Woodwinds Brass Percussion Keyboard Strings Several features make Manfred unique among Tchaikovsky's works. It

198-582: A symphonic poem entitled Fatum . Initially pleased with the piece when Nikolai Rubinstein conducted it in Moscow , Tchaikovsky dedicated it to Balakirev and sent it to him to conduct in St. Petersburg. Fatum received a lukewarm reception. Balakirev wrote a detailed letter to Tchaikovsky explaining the defects, but also giving some encouragement: Your Fatum has been performed [in St. Petersburg] reasonably well ... There wasn't much applause, probably because of

264-475: A confrontation of the two themes—exactly what an academically trained composer might be expected to produce. While Balakirev responded to the love theme by writing Tchaikovsky, "I play it often, and I want very much to hug you for it", he also discarded many of the early drafts Tchaikovsky sent him—the opening, for instance, sounded more like a Haydn quartet than the Liszt chorale he had suggested initially—and

330-454: A considerable stir. Its subject was very much to the tastes of its audiences, whose enthusiasm for the works of Lord Byron had not exhausted itself as it had begun to do in Europe. Berlioz's use of a four-movement structure for writing program music intrigued many Russian musicians. One immediate consequence was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 's four movement suite Antar , written in 1868. Around

396-405: A copy of Stasov's program, which he had amended with suggested key signatures for each movement and representative works which Tchaikovsky had already written to give some idea of what Balakirev had in mind. Balakirev also gave warning to avoid "vulgarities in the manner of German fanfares and Jägermusik ," plus instructions about the layout of the flute and percussion parts. Tchaikovsky declined

462-412: A formal conservatory training but clearly recognized Tchaikovsky's great talents. Tchaikovsky liked and admired Balakirev. However, as he told his brother Anatoly, "I never feel quite at home with him. I particularly don't like the narrowness of his musical views and the sharpness of his tone." Balakirev suggested Tchaikovsky write a piece based on William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet . Tchaikovsky

528-642: A mechanical fashion but with the addition of some of the technical sequins which cost our deft and resourceful composer so little effort." Some regard Manfred as one of Tchaikovsky's most brilliant and inspired works; conductor Arturo Toscanini considered it the composer's greatest composition and it was one of only two Tchaikovsky symphonies (the other being the Pathetique ) that he ever programmed. His admiration did not stop him from making changes in Manfred' s score when he performed and recorded it, including

594-510: A model for Romeo —a prudent move, since he had seen Tchaikovsky's weakness in writing in an unstructured musical form in Fatum . King Lear is not a symphonic poem in the manner of Liszt . It is a tragic overture in sonata form along the line of Beethoven 's overtures, relying more on the dramatic potential of sonata form rather than on a literary program. Thus, Balakirev had transformed King Lear into an instrumental drama and now offered it as

660-442: A model to Tchaikovsky. While basing Romeo and Juliet on King Lear was Balakirev's suggestion, reducing the plot of the former to one central conflict and then combining it with the binary structure of sonata form was Tchaikovsky's idea. However, executing that plot in the music we know today came only after two radical revisions. In the first version of Romeo and Juliet , the development section contained an opening fugato and

726-445: A number of cuts. However, others despise it. According to music critic David Hurwitz , composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein referred to it as "trash" and never recorded it. Some critics have commented that, for all Tchaikovsky's distrust of program music and Manfred' s kinship to a Berlioz work he did not wish to repeat, the symphony proves its composer's capacity to infuse another composer's example with his own personality, provided

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792-406: A program symphony, I have the sensation of being a charlatan and cheating the public; I am paying them not hard cash but rubbishy bits of paper money." However, he later wrote to Emilia Pavlovskaya, "The symphony has turned out to be huge, serious, difficult, absorbing all my time, sometimes to utter exhaustion; but an inner voice tells me that my labor is not in vain and that this work will perhaps be

858-565: A second musical slab, this time pushing forward with the loudest climax Tchaikovsky ever wrote. The music in the third slab seems calmer, while the fourth slab marks the appearance of Astarte. The fifth slab culminates in a frantic climax and a series of abrupt, final chords. [REDACTED] The Alpine fairy appears before Manfred in the rainbow from the spray of a waterfall. Tchaikovsky's efforts in exploring fresh possibilities in scoring allowed him to present his music with new colors and more refined contrasts. In this scherzo, it seems as though

924-526: Is a decided improvement, there were other changes I had wanted you to make. I had hoped that for the sake of your future compositions, this one would remain in your hands somewhat longer." Balakirev closed by hoping that P. Jurgenson would sometime agree to bring out a "revised and improved version of the Overture." The second version was premiered in St. Petersburg on February 17, 1872, under Eduard Nápravník . In 1880, ten years after his first reworking of

990-446: Is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky . It is styled an Overture-Fantasy , and is based on Shakespeare 's play of the same name . Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev , Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The Tempest and Hamlet as well. Unlike Tchaikovsky's other major compositions, Romeo and Juliet does not have an opus number . It has been given

1056-488: Is dedicated to Balakirev. Below are the key signatures Balakirev initially envisioned for Manfred , what he later suggested, and what Tchaikovsky eventually used in the symphony: [REDACTED] Manfred wanders in the Alps. Weary of the fatal question of existence, tormented by hopeless longings and the memory of past crimes, he suffers cruel spiritual pangs. He has plunged into occult sciences and commands

1122-403: Is interrupted by two large orchestra hits with cymbal crashes, which symbolise the families' war disrupting their love, and eventually bringing their deaths, with hate prevailing over love. A final battle theme is played, then a soft, slow dirge in B major ensues, with timpani playing a repeated triplet pattern, and tuba holding a B natural for 16 bars. The woodwinds play a sweet homage to

1188-406: Is more conventional, with two simple themes—one graceful, the other more roughly rustic. It forms in its static quality an idealized retreat before the turmoil of the finale. The finale reflects Harold en Italie in the exuberance of the revelling. Tchaikovsky manages to add a fugue , a return of Astarte and a death scene at the end.' Nevertheless, musicologist David Brown considered the finale

1254-421: Is not hard to see how these carefully selected elements might appeal to Tchaikovsky. Free from having to reconcile the first movement to sonata form , Tchaikovsky constructs his own form which succeeds well as an expression of the program. A massive opening motive associated with Manfred himself expresses both the strength and gloom of his character. This motive returns at crucial parts to identify Manfred's part in

1320-455: Is precious to me as a sign of your sympathy towards me—and I feel a great weakness for you. M. Balakirev—who sincerely loves you. Tchaikovsky was too self-critical not to see the truth behind Balakirev's comments. He accepted Balakirev's criticism, and the two continued to correspond. (Tchaikovsky later destroyed the score of Fatum . The score was reconstructed posthumously from the orchestral parts.) Balakirev remained suspicious of anyone with

1386-652: Is scored for an orchestra comprising piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets (in A), 2 bassoons + 4 horns (in F), 2 trumpets (in E), 3 trombones, tuba + timpani, cymbals, bass drum + harp, violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, and double basses. At first Romeo and Juliet was not successful in Russia and Europe. It was received lukewarmly at its world premiere in March 1870. The work

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1452-624: Is still seldom heard in the concert hall. In the first ten years after graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1865, Tchaikovsky completed three symphonies . After that he started five more symphony projects, four of which led to a completed symphony premiered during the composer's lifetime. During his second and final trip to Russia in the winter of 1867–68, the French composer Hector Berlioz conducted his program symphony Harold en Italie . The work caused

1518-485: Is the only programmatic work he wrote in more than one movement. The first two movements do not recapitulate their middle sections. The entire work is not only long, playing up to and sometimes over an hour, but it is designed with the utmost spaciousness in mind. There is nothing else in Tchaikovsky's works that captures the long-breathed deliberation of the third movement or the practically verbatim recapitulation of

1584-513: The alternative catalogue designations TH 42 and ČW 39. Although styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story. The first strand, written in F-sharp minor , following Mily Balakirev 's suggestion, is the introduction representing

1650-539: The action. Beneath this theme is a musical structure that, while not conforming to the traditional recapitulation of themes in sonata form, succeeds in moving forward without losing unity or degenerating into a series of episodes. It is a musical portrait of the guilty, doomed sensibility, drawn strongly as Berlioz' Harold. This was perhaps the aspect of Byron which appealed most vividly to Russians; it also may have touched closely on Tchaikovsky's own situation. The two inner movements work as effective structural contrasts to

1716-461: The appalling cacophony at the end of the piece, which I don't like at all. It is not properly gestated, and seems to have been written in a very slapdash manner. The seams show, as does all your clumsy stitching. Above all, the form itself just does not work. The whole thing is completely uncoordinated.... I am writing to you with complete frankness, being fully convinced that you won't go back on your intention of dedicating Fatum to me. Your dedication

1782-408: The best of my symphonic works." Instead of following Balakirev's instructions slavishly, Tchaikovsky wrote it in his own style. Initially, he considered it to be one of his best compositions, but wanted a few years later to destroy the score, though that intention was never carried out. The Manfred Symphony was first performed in Moscow on 23 March 1886, with Max Erdmannsdörfer as conductor. It

1848-561: The couple first meeting and the scene at Juliet's balcony. The English horn and viola represent Romeo, while the flutes represent Juliet. In the development, the battling strand returns, this time with more intensity and build-up, with the Friar Laurence theme heard with agitation in F♯ minor. This section is then repeated again, a semitone higher. Eventually, a fortissimo is reached where the trumpets play an altered Friar Laurence theme with

1914-426: The eminent musician the previous day, and this incited a noisy demonstration in his favour when he appeared on the concert platform, which proved much more interesting to the audience than the new overture. The result was not encouraging as a premiere for Romeo and Juliet . Tchaikovsky said of the premiere: The initial failure of Romeo and Juliet induced Tchaikovsky to fully accept Balakirev's criticisms and rework

1980-1158: The emotional nature of the work found a response in him. These critics have called Manfred one of the great program symphonies of the 19th century. The Manfred Symphony was voted number 75 in the ABC Classic FM Top 100 Symphony Countdown in 2009. The symphony has been recorded many times, with recordings made by major orchestras and conductors . Conductors who have recorded the work include Arturo Toscanini , Mstislav Rostropovich , Lorin Maazel , Eugene Goossens , André Previn , Bernard Haitink , Eugene Ormandy , Yuri Temirkanov , Paul Kletzki , Constantin Silvestri , Yevgeny Svetlanov (three recordings), Riccardo Muti , Sir Neville Marriner , Igor Markevitch , Yuri Ahronovitch , Andrew Litton , Mikhail Pletnev (twice), Vladimir Fedoseyev , Riccardo Chailly , Mariss Jansons , Vasily Petrenko , Zubin Mehta , Vladimir Jurowski , Vladimir Ashkenazy , Kurt Masur and others. In

2046-416: The hordes of the evil spirit Arimanes to Manfred's appearance amongst them. A fugue, Brown argues, is by nature undramatic in both its fixation on one thematic idea and its measured progress; therefore, it cannot help but sound stodgy, resulting in a misstep from which the music never fully recovers. Musicologist Ralph Wood, in contrast, stated that while the finale may have its faults, there is still much about

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2112-512: The love theme were also played in the original The Sims video game, when two Sims successfully performed the "Kiss" interaction. How "powerful" the theme was depended on how compatible, or how in love, the interacting Sims were with each other. Along with another Tchaikovsky piece, Dance of the Reed Flutes from the ballet The Nutcracker , the Romeo and Juliet love theme was sampled at

2178-518: The lovers, and a final allusion to the love theme brings in the climax, beginning with a huge crescendo B natural roll of the timpani, and the orchestra plays homophonic shouts of a B major chord before the final bar, with full orchestra belting out a powerful B natural to close the overture. In 1869 Tchaikovsky was a 28-year-old professor at the Moscow Conservatory . Having written his first symphony and an opera , he next composed

2244-411: The middle of the bacchanal. Evocation and appearance of the shade of Astarte. He is pardoned. Death of Manfred. Many critics consider the finale to be fatally flawed, but the problem lies less with music than with the program. Up to this point Tchaikovsky has done well at reconciling the extramusical requirements for each movement with the music itself. Now, however, the program takes over, beginning with

2310-514: The mighty powers of darkness, but neither they nor anything in this world can give him with the forgetfulness to which alone he vainly aspires. The memory of the lost Astarte, once passionately loved, gnaws his heart and there is neither limit nor end to Manfred's despair. The musical embodiment of this program note is presented in five extensive musical slabs spaced out by four silences. A brooding first theme, briefly unharmonized, builds to music both spacious and monolithic. A second theme leads to

2376-478: The mountain folk. This pastorale opens with a siciliana , then the three-note call of a hunter. The opening theme returns. We hear a brief and lively peasant dance, then an agitated outburst, before the opening theme returns. The opening pastoral theme eventually returns more spaciously and in a fuller, more decorative scoring. The hunter sounds his horn; the music fades. [REDACTED] The subterranean palace of Arimanes. Infernal orgy. Appearance of Manfred in

2442-460: The music that is quite good. Critics were divided on Manfred from the work's outset. César Cui , the member of the Russian nationalistic music group known as The Five whose reviews of Tchaikovsky's compositions were mostly negative, praised Manfred . Cui commented especially on the "masterly description of Manfred's gloomy, noble image" in the opening movement and the "ravishing refinement" of

2508-530: The music. Despite this, several Parisian composers and musicians, including Camille Saint-Saëns , appreciated the piece. One group that appreciated Romeo at once was the kuchka ("The Five"). Balakirev, now having the full score, wrote of their enthusiastic response and 'how delighted everyone is with your D-flat bit [the love theme]—including Vladimir Stasov , who says: "There were five of you: now there are six!" The beginning and end are as strongly censured'—and, Balakirev added, needed rewriting. Still, such

2574-495: The opening drama. The waterfall in the second movement gives Tchaikovsky the opportunity for one of his longest and most beautifully worked out scherzos , scored with a delicacy that Berlioz might have admired; Tchaikovsky's Alpine experiences might have come in handy here. For the third movement pastorale, Balakirev had hoped for a Russian version of the corresponding movement from the Symphonie fantastique . Tchaikovsky's version

2640-423: The orchestration creates the music, as though Tchaikovsky has thought directly in colors and textures, making these the primary focus. Put simply, there is no tune and little definition of any harmonic base, creating a world alluring, fragile and magical. The point becomes clear when an actual and lyrical tune enters the central section of the movement. [REDACTED] A picture of the bare, simple, free life of

2706-428: The piece was constantly in the mail between Moscow and St. Petersburg, going to Tchaikovsky or Balakirev. Tchaikovsky accepted some, but not all, of Balakirev's nagging, and completed the work, dedicating it to Balakirev. The first performance on March 16, 1870, was hindered by a sensational court case surrounding the conductor, Tchaikovsky's friend Nikolai Rubinstein , and a female student. The court had found against

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2772-567: The piece, Tchaikovsky rewrote the ending and gave the piece the sub-title "Overture-Fantasia". It was completed by September 10, 1880, but did not receive its premiere until May 1, 1886, in Tbilisi , Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), under Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov . This third and final version is the one that is now in the repertoire. The earlier versions are performed occasionally as historical curiosities. The third version

2838-468: The piece. It also forced Tchaikovsky to reach beyond his musical training and rewrite much of the music into the form it is known today. This included the choice of leaving the love theme out of the development section, saving its confrontation with the first theme (the conflict of the Capulets and Montagues) for the second half of the recapitulation. In the exposition, the love theme remains shielded from

2904-550: The poem) a bacchanal. Here again is the description of the first movement from the program: Manfred wanders in the Alpine mountains. His life is shattered, but he is obsessed with life's unanswerable questions. In life nothing remains for him except memories. Images of his ideal Astarte permeate his thoughts, and he vainly calls to her. Only the echo from the cliffs repeats her name. Memories and thoughts bum and gnaw at him. He seeks and begs for oblivion, which no-one can give him. It

2970-465: The program Balakirev gave him—and that impulse brought forth a work of great originality and power. While he did not follow Berlioz in how he might have handled the program, Tchaikovsky did make use of an idée fixe recurring in all four movements. He also followed a Berliozian design of a lengthy, reflective, melancholy opening movement, two colorful interludes as inner movements, and a finale in which Berlioz' Brigands' Orgy becomes (without any hint from

3036-419: The program to Balakirev, who kept it. A little over a year later, Berlioz had died, and by 1872 Balakirev was embroiled in a personal crisis that silenced him creatively. Tchaikovsky's entrance into this story was strictly by circumstance. He finished his final revision of his fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet in 1880, a work on which he and Balakirev had worked tirelessly together a decade earlier, and which

3102-504: The program to French composer Hector Berlioz , whose programmatic works impressed him. Berlioz in turn had declined the project claiming old age and ill health and returned to the program, after which it had remained with Balakirev until he reestablished contact with Tchaikovsky in the early 1880s. Manfred is the only programmatic symphonic work by Tchaikovsky in more than one movement and is larger than any of his numbered symphonies both in length and instrumentation. He initially considered

3168-582: The project at first. He claimed the subject left him cold and seemed too close to Berlioz's work for him to manage anything but a piece that would lack inspiration and originality. Balakirev persisted. "You must, of course, make an effort ," he exhorted, "take a more self-critical approach, don't hurry things." His importunity finally changed Tchaikovsky's mind—after two years of effort. So did Tchaikovsky's rereading Manfred for himself while tending to his friend Iosif Kotek in Davos , Switzerland , nestled in

3234-468: The publishing house Bote and Bock to publish the piece in 1870. This was considered an accomplishment since Tchaikovsky's music was virtually unknown in Germany at the time. Balakirev thought Tchaikovsky was rushing Romeo and Juliet to press prematurely. "It is a pity that you, or rather Rubinstein, should have rushed the publication of the Overture," he wrote to the composer. "Although the new introduction

3300-471: The rest of the orchestra having an off-beat gesture, in B minor. This leads into the recapitulation where the strife theme returns. A transition is heard where the clarinets play an altered love theme over restless violin phrases, before the strings enter with a lush, hovering melody over which the flute and oboe eventually soar with the love theme once again, this time loud and in D major , signaling their consummated marriage, and finally heard in E major. It

3366-510: The saintly Friar Laurence . Here there is a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. The Friar Laurence theme is heard in F-sharp minor, with plucked strings, before ending up in E minor. The introduction is chorale -like. [REDACTED] Eventually a single first inversion B minor chord is passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B ;minor,

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3432-471: The same Alps in which the poem was set. Once he returned home, Tchaikovsky revised the draft Balakirev had made from Stasov's programme and began sketching the first movement. Tchaikovsky may have found a subject in Manfred for which he could comfortably compose. However, there was a difference between placing a personal program into a symphony and writing such a work in a literary program. He wrote to his friend and former student Sergei Taneyev , "Composing

3498-411: The same time as Rimsky-Korsakov composed Antar , critic Vladimir Stasov wrote a scenario for a sequel to Harold , this time based on Byron's poem Manfred and sent it to the nationalist composer Mily Balakirev . Balakirev did not feel attracted to the idea, so he forwarded the program to Berlioz, only hinting it was not entirely his own. Berlioz declined, claiming old age and ill health. He returned

3564-496: The same time to the song "Love, so Lovely" for the direct-to-video Disney film Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers . Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet Anna Karenina , choreographed by Boris Eifman . The main theme of the overture to Romeo and Juliet was adapted in 1939 by bandleader Larry Clinton as popular song "Our Love" (lyrics by Buddy Bernier and Bob Emmerich) and recorded by Clinton and by Jimmy Dorsey . Composer Walter Murphy arranged

3630-507: The scherzo, concluding that "we can only thank [Tchaikovsky] for his new contribution to the treasure-store of our nation's symphonic music." The composer's friend, critic Herman Laroche , was less positive, calling Manfred "among the most raw and unfinished of [Tchaikovsky's] compositions." While admitting the work was "full of melodic warmth and sincerity", Laroche criticized its programmatic aspects, which left "an impression of mystery and uncertainty cribbed from Liszt , though cribbed not in

3696-516: The score. In the same letter, Balakirev suggested another project—"the programme for another symphony ... which you could handle superbly." He presented Stasov's detailed plan, explaining it was not in his character to engage in such composition. As he explained in a letter to Tchaikovsky in October 1882, "this magnificent subject is unsuitable, it doesn't harmonise with my inner frame of mind". When Tchaikovsky showed polite interest, Balakirev sent

3762-699: The second and third of Svetlanov's accounts, a 1989 live concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker and a 1992 concert in Tokyo with the Russian Federation State Orchestra, he replaces the closing pages of the finale with a reprise of the coda of the first movement. It creates a more triumphal conclusion, and has occasionally been repeated in concert, but was never in any score left by Tchaikovsky. Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky) Romeo and Juliet , TH 42, ČW 39,

3828-447: The strife theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight, depicted by crashing cymbals. There are agitated, quick sixteenth notes. 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 love theme signifies

3894-457: The violence of the first theme. In the recapitulation the first theme strongly influences the love theme and ultimately destroys it. By following this pattern, Tchaikovsky shifts the true musical conflict from the development section to the recapitulation, where it climaxes in dramatic catastrophe. Meanwhile, Rubinstein had become impressed with Tchaikovsky's compositional talents in general and with Romeo and Juliet in particular. He arranged for

3960-400: The weakest part of Manfred , not because of the music itself but of the programme. Up to this point, Brown writes, Tchaikovsky had very successfully reconciled extramusical specifications with musical structure. Now the program takes over, resulting in a fragmented movement with musical disruption and non sequiturs . The fatal flaw is the fugue, which Tchaikovsky wrote to convey the reaction of

4026-546: The widely variegated opening section of the second movement following the equally huge middle section. At least one critic has suggested that, in its heroic but perfectly judged dimensions, Manfred resembles Richard Strauss 's later tone poem Ein Heldenleben . Musicologist John Warrack suggests that, of all Tchaikovsky's major neglected works, Manfred may be the one which least deserves this fate. He apparently felt such an impulse—if not from Byron's poem, then from

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4092-402: The work one of his best, and in a typical reversal of opinion later considered destroying all but the opening movement. The symphony was greeted with mixed reviews, some finding much to laud in it, and others feeling that its programmatic aspects only weakened it. Manfred remained rarely performed for many years, due to its length and complexity. It has been recorded with increasing frequency but

4158-561: Was dedicated to Balakirev. Since Balakirev had dropped away from the music scene in the intervening time, Tchaikovsky asked the publisher Bessel to send a copy of the printed score to Balakirev, thinking he would have a current address. Whether the publisher delayed in fulfilling this request or Balakirev did not reply, no news was forthcoming as to whether Balakirev had received the score, so Tchaikovsky wrote to Balakirev in September 1881. Balakirev wrote back, thanking Tchaikovsky profusely for

4224-419: Was having difficulties writing an opera entitled Undine , which he would eventually destroy. Though he complained, "I'm completely burned out," Balakirev persisted, as was his manner. Balakirev wrote suggestions about the structure of Romeo and Juliet , giving details of the type of music required in each section, and even opinions on which keys to use. Balakirev had suggested his own overture King Lear as

4290-657: Was hissed when Hans Richter conducted it in Vienna in November 1876; critic Eduard Hanslick excoriated the piece afterwards. The Paris premiere two weeks later, at the Concerts Populaires under Jules Pasdeloup , went no better. According to Tchaikovsky's colleague and friend Sergei Taneyev , who attended the Paris performance, Romeo's lack of success there may have been due to Pasdeloup's failure to understand

4356-750: Was the enthusiasm of the kuchka for Romeo that Balakirev was asked to play it every time they met. Eventually, he learned to play the piece from memory as a result of fulfilling their requests. The Overture's love theme has been influentially used in many television series and movies such as Moonraker , Columbo , The Jazz Singer (1927), Wayne's World , Animaniacs , Taz-Mania , Tiny Toon Adventures , Scrubs , Seeing Double , The Simpsons , South Park , Clueless , A Christmas Story , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , SpongeBob SquarePants , Pushing Daisies , Sesame Street , El Chavo , The Three Musketeers , and The Ren & Stimpy Show , among others. Different variations of

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