Shortly before the overture-fantasy on Shakespeare’s tragedy took
shape in Tschaikowsky’s mind, he had been jilted by the French soprano
Désirée Artôt, then enjoying a prodigious vogue as opera singer in St.
Petersburg. The twenty-eight-year-old composer and Mlle. Artôt had
become engaged in 1868, but the lady promptly left him and married the
Spanish baritone Padilla y Ramos. The theory is that Tschaikowsky’s
composition grew out of the resulting emotional upset, or at least that
his frame of mind conduced to tragic expression on a romantic theme.
The Artôt episode acted as stimulus, but the concrete suggestion for
using Shakespeare’s tragedy in a symphonic work came from Balakireff
during a walk with Tschaikowsky and their friend Kashkin “on a lovely
day in May.” Balakireff, head of the group of five young Russian
composers (Tschaikowsky was not one of them) bent on achieving a pure
national idiom, went so far as to outline the scheme to Tschaikowsky,
unfolding the possibilities of dramatic and musical co-ordination so
vividly that the young composer took eagerly to the project. Balakireff
even furnished the keys and hints for themes and development.
However, four months went by before Tschaikowsky plunged into the
actual composition of the overture-fantasy. Balakireff kept in close
touch with him and virtually supervised the process. His dogmatism and
narrowness often bored and irritated the young composer. Balakireff
accepted this and rejected that, was pitilessly graphic in his
comments, and yet somehow egged on the hypersensitive Tschaikowsky to
completion of a taxing assignment. Finally, in January of the following
year, Balakireff and Rimsky-Korsakoff came to visit him and he could
write: “My overture pleased them very much and it also pleases me.”
Still, the Moscow public responded coolly, and Tschaikowsky felt
obliged to revise much of the score that summer. Further rewriting was
done for the definitive edition brought out in 1881.
The thematic scheme is easy to follow. Friar Laurence takes his bow in
a solemn andante introduction for clarinets and bassoons in F-sharp
minor. The feud of the Montagues and Capulets rages in a B minor
allegro. Romeo and Juliet enter via muted violins and English horn in
a famous theme in D-flat major suggesting Tschaikowsky’s song _Wer nur
die Sehnsucht kennt_ (“None But the Lonely Heart”). The strife-torn
Montagues and Capulets return for another bout. Chords of muted violins
and violas hinting at mystery and secrecy bring back the love music.
The themes of Romeo and Juliet, the embattled families, and Friar
Laurence are heard in succession, followed by a fierce orchestral
crash, and the storm subsides to a roll of kettledrums.
_Francesca da Rimini_, FANTASIA FOR ORCHESTRA (AFTER DANTE), OPUS 32
Written in 1876, Tschaikowsky’s symphonic treatment of the celebrated
love story of Paolo and Francesca grew out of an original project for
an opera on the same subject. He abandoned the idea of an opera when
the libretto submitted to him proved impossible. Later Tschaikowsky
again read through the fifth canto of Dante’s _Inferno_, in which the
tragedy is related. Stirred by the verses and also by Gustave Doré’s
illustrations, he resolved to write an orchestral fantasy on the
subject.
Prefacing the score are the following lines from Dante’s great poem:
“Dante arrives in the second circle of hell. He sees that here the
incontinent are punished, and their punishment is to be continually
tormented by the crudest winds under a dark and gloomy air. Among these
tortured ones he recognizes Francesca da Rimini, who tells her story.
“‘ ... There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in
wretchedness; and this thy teacher knows. But if thou hast such desire
to learn the first root of our love, I will do like one who weeps and
tells.
“‘One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot, how love constrained him.
We were alone, and without all suspicion. Several times reading urged
our eyes to meet, and changed the color of our faces. But one moment
alone it was that overcame us. When we read of how the fond smile was
kissed by such a lover, he, who shall never be divided from me, kissed
my mouth all trembling. The book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto.
That day we read in it no farther.’
“While the one spirit thus spake, the other wept so that I fainted with
pity, as if I had been dying; and fell, as a dead body falls.”
Tschaikowsky used to insist that the following titles be given in the
program-book at performances of his fantasia:
I. Introduction: The gateway to the Inferno
(“Leave all hope behind, all ye who enter here”)
Tortures and agonies of the condemned.
II. Francesca tells the story of her tragic love for Paolo.
III. The turmoil of Hades. Conclusion.
The composition starts with a descriptive setting, in which a sinister,
gruesome picture is painted of the second circle of Dante’s _Inferno_.
The awesome scene, with its haunting, driving winds, desolate moans,
and dread terror, is repeated at the end. In the middle occurs a
section featuring a clarinet in a plaintive and tender melody heard
against string pizzicati. This instantly evokes the image of Francesca
telling her tragic tale, which mounts in fervor and reaches its
shattering crisis, before the wailing winds of Dante’s netherworld
close in again.