Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64

Concert performances almost always use a selection of numbers Prokofiev arranged into suites, rather than the complete ballet, so what you hear depends on the conductor's chosen order. Most programs open with music tied to the feuding Montague and Capulet families, often "Montagues and Capulets," built on a heavy, stomping theme in the low brass and strings that suggests armored men marching, sometimes called "Dance of the Knights." This tune returns like a slamming door whenever the families' hatred flares up. Softer numbers follow the young lovers themselves: a shy, rising melody for Juliet as a teenager still playing with dolls, and a hushed, suspended passage for the balcony scene, where the orchestra seems to hold its breath between phrases. A boisterous, folk-flavored dance usually represents the crowded Verona marketplace, full of quick strings and clattering percussion. Later selections turn dark: brooding, low woodwind writing announces news of a death, and the ballet's close is handled with restraint rather than a big finish, quiet chords fading rather than crashing. Listen for how Prokofiev reuses the same handful of themes throughout, so a melody heard tenderly early on can return, twisted and heavier, once tragedy has struck.

Prokofiev composed Romeo and Juliet in 1935 for Soviet ballet, working from Shakespeare's play with librettist Adrian Piotrovsky and choreographer Sergei Radlov. The Kirov Theatre in Leningrad staged the first full production in 1940, after a Czech company gave an earlier premiere in Brno in 1938 and Soviet institutions initially balked at the score's harmonic language and its unconventional plan for a happy ending, later abandoned. Rather than wait for staged performances, Prokofiev extracted orchestral suites from the ballet so audiences could hear the music in concert, and these suites became a standard part of the orchestral repertoire long before the complete ballet was widely performed outside Russia. Today the full ballet is a staple of major dance companies, while orchestras regularly program the suites or individual excerpts, especially "Montagues and Capulets," as a concert-hall introduction to Prokofiev's dramatic, tune-driven orchestral writing.