Roméo et Juliette

“I would…write a really important work…full of passion and imagination, worthy to be dedicated to the glorious artist to whom I owed so much.” For Berlioz, Shakespeare represented the pinnacle of artistic originality and truth, inspiring a whole range of pieces including overtures and fantasias, choral music and an opera. None were greater, in the composer’s eyes, than his “dramatic symphony” Roméo et Juliette (1839). This unusual work, modelled loosely on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, is a choral symphony that aims less to dramatise Shakespeare’s story—it is, deliberately, not an opera—but to convey its essence: to distil it into emotive, psychological music, often making great demands of its performers. While Berlioz deploys two choruses to represent the rival families of Montagues and Capulets, and soloists for supporting roles, the two lovers are, crucially, represented only by the orchestra. The famous central love scene is no love-duet but an instrumental fantasy. Without the anchor of words, Berlioz’s musical imagination soars unconstrained in music that Wagner (present at an early performance) found a “revelation”. Three symphonic movements move through the story (as adapted by 18th-century actor-manager David Garrick), always returning to three musical motifs—one for each of the lovers, and one for them both. Striking episodes include the fleet-footed, scurrying “La Reine Mab” (otherwise known as the “Queen Mab Scherzo”) inspired by Mercutio’s monologue, an elaborate fugal march for Juliet’s funeral procession, and a monumental chorale finale in which the warring families are finally reconciled.