Can serious music maintain its independence as an art form, but become a powerful pictorial medium, armed with a literary subject? Pyotr Ilyich answers that it is possible. And the best example of this approach was the Russian classics’ most famous overture, written on the subject of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
Here Tchaikovsky is not interested in details and he is not after effects, the composer focuses on three themes that signify the main conflict and build the drama of the entire suite: the choral theme (referring to monasticism), the nervous and belligerent theme of enmity and the theme of love, one of the most beautiful melodies in the history of music. Tchaikovsky, a perfectionist, would edit this work throughout his life, enjoy conducting it abroad, and consider this overture his finest work to the end of his days.