SKU: HL.50510026
ISBN 9790080400722. UPC: 073999679762. 5.5x8.0x0.326 inches. Gabor Darvas.
Inspired by his friend, the composer Balakirev Tchaikovsky decided in 1869 to write an overture to Shakespeare's drama Romeo and Juliet. The work was completed the same year and received its premiere soon thereafter, on March 4th, 1870 in Moscow under the direction of Nikolay Rubinstein. Following the performance the composer worked over the piece again at Balakirev's instigation: he wrote a new introduction and altered the return and the end, too. The new version was first performed under the baton of Napravnik in St Petersburg on February 5th, 1872. By that time it had become clear that the composition was closer to the genre of symphonic poem than to that of a theatrical preludewhich is also indicated by the subtitle: 'fantasy overture'. In the 1880s Tchaikovsky carried out further changes in the score and thus the third version of Romeo and Juliet emerged that was first performed by Ippolitov-Ivanov as conductor in Tbilisi on April 19th, 1886.
