Romeo and Juliet (Overture-Fantasy)

Balakirev proposed the subject to Tchaikovsky in 1869, went as far as suggesting a key scheme and an opening in the manner of a Liszt chorale, and criticised each draft as it arrived. Tchaikovsky rewrote the piece in 1870 and again in 1880; the version played today is the third. It is not a narrative but a sonata design in which the feud, the lovers and Friar Laurence are given contending material. The love theme was the one thing Balakirev praised without reservation. Tchaikovsky was twenty-nine at the first version, and it is his earliest work still in the repertory.