CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

REHEARSING AND PERFORMING FOUR PIECES FROM

SERGEI PROKOFIEV’S

ROMEO AND JULIET, SUITES 1&2, OP. 64

A graduate project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of Master of Music

in Music, Conducting

By

Talynn Kuyumjian

December 2016

  ii  

The graduate project of Talynn Kuyumjian is approved:

__________________________________________ ____________________ Dr. Diane Roscetti Date __________________________________________ ____________________ Dr. Lorenz Gamma Date

__________________________________________ ____________________ Dr. John Roscigno, chair Date

California State University, Northridge

  iii  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Signature Page……………………………………………………………………………ii

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1

Historical Background…………………………………………………………………….2

Selection of Movements and Score Study………………………………………………...5

The Rehearsal Process…………………………………………………………………….8

The Montagues and Capulets……………………………………………………..8

Juliet, The Young Girl…………………………………………………………....10

Romeo and Juliet…………………………………………………………………11

Death of Tybalt…………………………………………………………………..17

Performance……………………………………………………………………………...21

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..22

Appendix A: Musical Examples…………………………………………………………23

Appendix B: Concert Program…………………………………………………………..26

  iv  

ABSTRACT

REHEARSING AND PERFORMING FOUR PIECES FROM SERGEI PROKOFIEV’S

ROMEO AND JULIET, SUITES 1&2, OP. 64

By

Talynn Kuyumjian

Master of Music in Music, Conducting

This paper will describe the final project completed by the author for the partial

fulfillment of the degree of Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting. The orchestra that

played under the author’s baton was the CSUN Youth Philharmonic Orchestra – a high-

level youth orchestra consisting of musicians ranging from ages ten to eighteen – with

supervision from Dr. John Roscigno, professor of Orchestral Studies at CSUN. The

performance took place on Sunday, March 6, 2016, at the Plaza del Sol Performance Hall

on the school campus.

The purpose of this project was to rehearse the orchestra and prepare them to

perform a piece from the classical repertoire live in concert, with a length of

approximately twenty to twenty-five minutes. Possible pieces were discussed, and

eventually, it was decided that they would play four movements from Sergei Prokofiev’s

Romeo and Juliet Ballet score.

After long hours of score study, it became obvious that the rehearsal process

would be arduous and challenging; not only is the music technically difficult to play, but

  v  

Prokofiev writes in the extreme ranges of each instrument, making intonation one of the

major issues to deal with in rehearsal.

After a brief introduction, the paper is divided into four parts – historical

background, selection of movements, rehearsal process, and performance. Each section

will give an insight into this monumental orchestral work, and the main body of the paper

will discuss the details of anticipated issues with the orchestra and how they were dealt

with in rehearsal.

The concert program also included a violin concerto by Bruch and a symphony by

Beethoven. It was a demanding concert, but the brilliant and talented young musicians of

this orchestra pulled through and gave a spectacular performance.

  1  

Introduction

This graduate project included a series of rehearsals and a final performance by

Talynn Kuyumjian for her orchestral project in partial fulfillment for her Masters of

Music degree in Orchestral Conducting under the direction of Dr. John Roscigno at

California State University, Northridge. About a year before starting on the project,

possible pieces to conduct were discussed. My favorite composers are mostly Russian; so

I ultimately decided on a work by Sergei Prokofiev. I presented a performance of four

movements from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Ballet, performed by the CSUN

Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, a group of talented young musicians ranging from ages

eleven to eighteen, for their second concert of the season on the sixth of March, two

thousand and sixteen at the Plaza del Sol Performance Hall. This concert also included

the first movement of the Violin Concerto in G Minor by Max Bruch and Ludwig van

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. It was apparent from the beginning that this was going to

be an arduous and challenging, but also an exciting program for the musicians.

This paper will discuss the process of studying and preparing Prokofiev’s

impressive score for rehearsal, focusing on areas like tempo, articulation, balance, and

intonation. Because this is music composed for ballet, it was important for me to fully

understand the emotions of each of the movements and which scenes of the ballet they

relate to, then explain to the orchestra how to convey those emotions to the audience.

After providing a brief historical background, the methods of preparation and final results

will be discussed in this paper in three parts: selection of movements and score study, the

rehearsal process, and the final performance.

  2  

Historical Background

Before working on the music for Romeo and Juliet, Sergei Prokofiev had

voluntarily exiled himself from Soviet Russia, living in Paris and the United States. In

Paris, he worked with the renowned Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. They met in

1914, and had they never met, Prokofiev might not have written any ballet music at all;

he grew up in an environment where symphonies and operas were much more

respectable, and ballet was seen only as a “frivolous form of applied art.”1 In turn,

Diaghilev tried to convince him otherwise, that opera is a dying art and “contemporary

taste demands ballet and pantomime.”2 Only after seeing how enthusiastically European

audiences and critics responded to Ballet Russes productions did he begin to seriously

consider writing ballet music himself. Diaghilev produced a few of his short ballets, like

Le Pas D’Acier (1925) and The Prodigal Son (1929), and this did a great deal to enhance

Prokofiev’s reputation in Europe. It was Diaghilev’s death in 1929 and the collapse of the

Ballet Russes that initiated Prokofiev’s return to Russia, where he believed he would be

successful composing more ballet music.

Romeo and Juliet was his initial attempt at a full-length ballet and the first time he

had written music “on such a profound and human theme.”3 He had recently also scored

for film and theater music, which helped him to illustrate visual images more effectively

                                                                                                               1  Harlow Robinson, trans., Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), 61. 2  Victor Seroff, Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), 80. 2  Victor Seroff, Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), 80. 3  Israel Nestyev, Sergei Prokofiev: His Musical Life, trans. Rose Prokofieva (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), 146.

  3  

and “physically—as in the fight scenes.”4 It has a large instrumentation that is fairly

standard (piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, bassoon, 4 horns, cornet, 2 trumpets, 3

trombones, tuba, timpani, strings), with a great variety of percussion instruments

(triangle, tambourine, xylophone, glockenspiel, snare drum, cymbal, bass drum). A

saxophone and celesta were also included, which were unusual instruments to have in the

orchestra during the time.

The history of this music is somewhat of a rocky and complex one, suffering a

“number of setbacks that have never been fully explained.”5 Sergei Prokofiev first

completed the music for the Romeo and Juliet ballet in 1935 for the Kirov Ballet (now

the Mariinsky Ballet) based in the city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) working with theater

critic Adrian Piotrovsky and the company’s artistic director, Sergei Radlov, known for

his productions of Shakespearean works. Originally, Prokofiev had composed a happy

ending for William Shakespeare’s characters, but production of it never started because a

jovial ending of the story of the two lovers could have sparked unnecessary controversy

within a tyrannical government. He changed the story to the original ending and signed a

contract with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow (because of political turmoil, the location had

to be changed). After consulting over the music, the company decided that it was too

difficult to dance to, and they broke the contract.

After these rejections, Prokofiev extracted parts from the full ballet and put

together two orchestral suites, which were premiered before the ballet was ever staged.

Their first premiere was in Chicago in January 1937, where Prokofiev himself conducted

                                                                                                               4  Harlow Robinson, Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1987), 304. 5  Karen Bennett, “Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Socialist Realism: A Case Study in Inter-Semiotic Translation,” Shakespeare and European Politics (2008): 2.

  4  

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to critical acclaim; the premiere was followed closely

by performances in Paris and Moscow.

Following this success, the ballet was finally premiered on stage, not in the Soviet

Union, but in Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) in 1938, after the Leningrad Ballet

School had dishonored its agreement to premiere it in 1937. It finally made its debut in

Moscow with the Kirov Ballet in January of 1940 under artistic director Leonid

Lavrovsky. But it ultimately achieved success after it was staged with the Bolshoi Ballet

in 1946, which is when Prokofiev decided to put together a third orchestral suite.

Today, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet is considered one of the greatest, if not the

best (in my opinion), full-length ballets, along with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan

Lake, The Nutcracker, and others. It is completely distinct from the ballets he wrote in

Paris, capturing the “psychological complexities”6 of each hero, with “clear cut musical

character portraits and realistic theatrical depiction of scenes.”7 The ballet is one of his

most popular works and has become a staple in the orchestral repertoire through the

numerous performances of his orchestral suites.

                                                                                                               6  Nestyev, Prokofiev, 147. 7  Nestyev, Prokofiev, 147.

  5  

Selection of Movements and Score Study

One of the important components in determining which movements and in what

order they would be played was how to most effectively tell the story of Romeo and

Juliet within those few movements. Pieces from Suites 1 and 2 were chosen particularly

because they are more popular than the pieces in Suite 3.

One of the movements that I decided to include was the Montagues and Capulets,

the first piece from Suite 2. This movement, also known as Dance of the Knights,

impeccably establishes the “violent hostility”8 between the two haughty families, and

therefore was chosen as the introductory piece. It opens with dissonant horn and

trombone octaves that crescendo from mezzo forte to an explosive fortissimo chord (a B-

flat chord on top of an F chord with an added E) with timpani, snare drum, and bass drum

rolls, winds and brass all in their extreme ranges. This chord is suddenly cut off and a

pianissimo B minor chord emerges, then moves to D and resolves on G minor by the

strings. These opening chords immediately set the tension of the piece – impending doom

and sadness. After another set of similar chords, the well-known main theme begins, with

its dotted rhythm. The piece is in ternary form, with the flute taking on a sweeter

variation of the main theme in the contrasting middle section.

The next piece on the program was Romeo and Juliet, the sixth movement from

Suite 1. This is one of the central themes in the entire ballet, “tinged with a gentle,

restrained sadness, with quiet, hidden emotions, transparent and silvery tones

                                                                                                               8  Robinson, Prokofiev: Biography, 303.

  6  

dominating,”9 and lays the foundation of love between Romeo and Juliet. Even though it

starts off in the key of C, it shifts around to different tonal centers and key signatures

throughout the entire piece. This helps suggest the imminent sadness that will occur

between the two lovers. Tremolo violin and viola chords, doubled with the harp and low

flute and clarinet notes, give it a delicate, shimmery opening and this occurs often

throughout the movement with the first violins, low strings, and brass instruments playing

the melodies.

For the final movement, I elected to have a thrilling rather than calm ending. The

Death of Tybalt, movement 7 from Suite 1, was chosen as the closing piece for the

performance, as it closes with the full orchestra striking fortissimo chords with their

instruments. This movement is very exciting and fast paced, and tempos are set starting at

precipitato, shifting to presto, and ending with adagio drammatico in the dramatic key of

C minor. This scene depicts the fight between Romeo and Juliet’s cousin, the “proud and

vindictive”10 Tybalt. They are fighting with swords, kicking each other and falling down,

so the music is extremely agitated and aggressive, ending with powerful chords.

I decided there should be at least one more movement to make it a complete piece

for performance. The options were Juliet, The Young Girl from Suite 2, or Masks from

Suite 1. With consultation from my professor, I decided to go with Juliet, The Young

Girl, the second movement from Suite 2. This movement is very lively and pleasant,

depicting the light-hearted, joyful Juliet flittering around her room with the “vivacity of a

                                                                                                               9  Nestyev, Prokofiev, 147. 10  Nestyev, Prokofiev, 148.

  7  

young animal.”11 It takes a lot of tempo changes, alternating vivace and espressivo, with

tranquil passages including clarinet and flute solos. This was chosen instead of Masks,

since it was evident that it would be very challenging to conduct, as well as play for the

young musicians.

                                                                                                               11  Karen Bennet, “Star-Cross’d Lovers: Shakespeare and Prokofiev’s ‘Pas De Deux’ in Romeo and Juliet,” The Cambridge Quarterly Vol. 32 No. 4 (2003): 317.

  8  

The Rehearsal Process

This section will cover all the “problem spots” and how they were rehearsed,

going through the pieces in order. It was clear from the start that with a highly chromatic

piece like this, and with many instruments playing in their extreme ranges, intonation was

likely to be of the highest concern. Many tempo changes occur throughout these pieces; it

was critical for me to point out these areas to the group and ask them to circle the changes

on their sheet music and to look up each time they saw a tempo change come up so they

play exactly with me. Due to the technicality level of the young musicians, there were

sections I knew I would have to rehearse slowly as the indicated tempos are to play very

quickly. Dotted and offbeat rhythms had to be given special attention, since dotted

rhythms are often rushed, and the players are usually late on their offbeat entrances.

These are common problems that can occur with a youth orchestra that I would have to

anticipate and be prepared for before rehearsals begin, whereas with professionals, a

conductor would not run into as many obstacles.

Montagues and Capulets

The beginning of Montagues and Capulets opens with very loud chords in the

winds and brass, followed by very soft string chords. The four horns enter first in octaves,

so during rehearsal, they were asked to hold each of the notes and tune carefully. As the

trombones and trumpets enter, the chord all together becomes more dissonant, so they

were asked to hold out each of their notes to get used to the dissonance and not be afraid

to play out. The string chords needed to be tuned as well. The tempo is very slow here

  9  

(q=50) and different string instruments change notes at different times, so the cues had to

be given very clearly to each individual section.

Example 1. Montagues and Capulets – four bars before Rehearsal 2, strings

Starting in the Allegro pesante, I really wanted weight and heaviness, so I asked

the horns and tuba to play full-length quarter notes, and also the violas and basses to use

their entire bows on every single quarter note. Something that I did not anticipate was the

tendency of rushing of the melody in the violins. I had to make sure that they were

playing the dotted rhythm correctly, as they were starting the rhythm correctly but

gradually moving to a triplet pattern. This was crucial since the horns and trombones had

upcoming eighth note melodies and by rushing, the sound would not be as heavy as

desired. Therefore, it was important for me to also look weighty in order to keep a slow,

marching pace.

In the slow, moderato tranquillo section at rehearsal 7, I had to ensure the flute

melody was heard clearly. The flute solo is marked piano, but I asked her to play a full

mezzo forte, asked everyone else to play very softly, and requested that the violas listen to

the flute and move their glissandi exactly with flute melody (see Appendix A, Example

A1 for full score).

  10  

Out of all the movements, this one was the least challenging to conduct and for

the students to play.

Juliet, The Young Girl

Because this movement is very fast, I chose to have the students play it at a

slower tempo, roughly at q=112, for the first few rehearsals. I wanted this movement to

sound very light and bright, so I asked the violins to play their staccato notes in the

beginning very short and bouncy, and for the rest of the string instruments to really play

out their pizzicato notes. The wind instruments were asked to hit their staccato notes

“percussively” in order to help give it a bright and articulate sound.

One challenge in this particular movement was the observation of all the tempo

changes. As mentioned before, this piece alternates between fast and moderate tempo

sections, with a slow middle section. I had all the musicians circle the tempo markings on

their scores and asked them to make sure to look up at the conductor whenever they saw

a tempo change coming up in order for the orchestra to achieve precision.

There were almost no problems in the fast, vivace sections. The slower sections

brought on a lot of balance issues. For example, at rehearsal 57, I had to ask all the string

players to play absolutely pianissimo so that the wind solos could seep through to the

audience. Although the clarinet and flute solos in these sections were marked piano, I

asked them to play their passages forte.

  11  

Example 2. Juliet, The Young Girl – Rehearsal 57

This movement was mostly conducted in four, but I decided to conduct

subdivided four in the last four measures; the rhythm really slows down here, so by

subdividing, I was able to show the solo harp and saxophone passages how to clearly play

their sixteenth notes.

Romeo and Juliet

It was expected that balance and intonation issues were going to be the central

concerns in this movement. Sections where the entire orchestra plays together had to be

tuned; viola and cello players really needed to focus on their parts, as they had melodies

that went into the treble clef range, and many of the students had never played notes in

that range before. Rehearsals with string players only came in very handy for practicing

these parts.

The first section that I really focused on was at rehearsal 52, where an almost

contrapuntal melody begins with a solo first violin, second violin, and viola. The viola

  12  

begins its melody on an A-flat, and the soloist had difficulty finding this pitch. I had her

sustain her note with the first violin, an A-flat one octave higher, so they could tune. I

then told the soloist to start softly by listening to the pitch of the first violin so that she

would be able to come in on the right pitch. I had the violins and violas play this passage

quite a few times for the accuracy of intonation.

Example 3. Romeo and Juliet – Rehearsal 52, strings

The next section that I focused on rehearsing with the strings was at rehearsal 53.

Here, the tempo suddenly shifts from q=46 to q=120, and the strings have to play sul

ponticello. The time signature here constantly shifts from 2/4 to 3/4, so I explained to the

players that they have to be alert and keep counting. There is also a two measure poco

ritardando that switches back to a tempo, where I had to remind the players many times

to look up at me so that they would all stay together during the change of tempo. As you

see in the example, the poco ritardando is above a group of 16th and 32nd notes. I asked

the first violins to apply a lot of bow pressure into those first three 16th notes and not play

them in haste.

  13  

Example 4. Romeo and Juliet – Rehearsal 53

After this segment, at rehearsal 54, the tempo slows down to an andante (q=84).

All four horns enter with a chromatic harmonic progression, changing chords from C, to

B, to B-flat. As can be seen in the next example, they are on beats 2, 3, and 4, so I had all

of them hold each of the chords, for a few seconds. This way, they listened to each other

and were able to tune their notes accordingly.

Example 5. Romeo and Juliet – Rehearsal 54, French horns

  14  

The cellos then come in with the main melodic theme of the piece. Here is where

the cello notes go up to the treble clef. Many of the musicians nearly panicked when they

saw this and their sound did not resonate enough. It was important for them to play out

here as they have the main melody. In order to obtain a full, rich sound out of them, I told

the cellists to relax, use their full bows and not be afraid to vibrate. This really helped

with getting a warm, sonorous texture out of them.

Example 6. Romeo and Juliet – 4th-7th bars of Rehearsal 54, low strings

Around rehearsal 56 is where the entire orchestra plays together for the first time

in this movement. This part was completely out of tune after listening to a rehearsal

recording. In order to repair this, I had the members of the orchestra sustain the notes

they had in the beginning. It starts off on a C chord. I asked all members who have a C

(the root) to play first, then all who have a G (the fifth), and finally all who have an E (the

third). I have learned this method of tuning from Dr. Roscigno, and it has proved very

effective, as it allows the third to be adjusted in accordance to the perfect fifth. I also had

the orchestra tune the A-flat chord that occurs a few measures after.

It was also important in this part for the orchestra to play in time; after listening

through a run-through of the movement, I could not tell if the orchestra was playing

together, so I had to take it apart. I first rehearsed the violins, who have tremolo eighth

notes, asking them to play softly in order to give this part a “shimmery” sound. Then I

  15  

asked the woodwinds to join in with their dotted figures. I wanted to ensure they were all

moving at the same time because their rhythms are in unison. Finally, I asked the violas

and cellos to join in; they all have triplets. Because there is so much going on, it was

crucial for all the sections of the orchestra to stay exactly with my beat (see Appendix A,

Example A2 for full score).

Since this movement is highly romantic, I aimed to be very expressive and take

my time conducting the melodic lines in certain places. One of those parts occurs when

the violins and violas play one of the themes in their extreme ranges (see following

example). I asked the musicians to write down “look up” on their parts here, telling them

that I will be holding the tempo back on the third beat and greatly expanding the time.

This required me to close both my arms and open them with a lot of resistance.

Example 7. Romeo and Juliet – 2nd-5th bars of Rehearsal 58, strings

Rehearsal 60 was a section that I was not expecting to have a lot of issues with,

but the balance was completely off here. It was another part that I had to divide into

sections in rehearsal to work out the sound. The first violins have the melody here, while

  16  

the basses hold an E-flat pedal, the flute and clarinet play arpeggiated chords, and the

violas and cellos provide harmonic structure. When I listened to professional recordings

of this movement, it almost sounds as if the violas and cellos were not even playing,

whereas in my rehearsal, those instruments were very loud and almost distracting. I asked

them to play extremely soft using the tip of their bows, almost at zero volume. Even

though the first violins have a piano marked here in their part, I told them they could play

mezzo piano in order to bring out the melody. The flute and clarinet players were asked to

play at a mezzo piano volume as well and play their 16th notes smoothly and with fluidity.

This solved the balance issue in rehearsal.

Example 8. Romeo and Juliet – Rehearsal 60

Other intonation issues in this piece occurred when the first violins went

extremely high above the staff. Having them play their passages slowly and listening to

each other really helped get their notes in tune.

  17  

Many times throughout this movement, brass instruments such as the horns,

trumpets, and trombones have the melody lines. During rehearsal, many of them were shy

to play their parts with confidence. I had them circle their dynamic markings wherever

they have the melodic line marked forte and molto espressivo. Asking them to play full,

round notes helped them give a sonorous sound to the melodies.

As expected, this movement took the longest time in rehearsals mostly because of

balance and intonation problems.

Death of Tybalt

This movement, although very challenging to play for musicians to play, was

fairly simple to conduct. The tempo stays q=160 for the entire first half, changes to q=168

in the middle, and q=48 for the ending section. The challenging aspect for me in this

movement was the cueing of instruments, especially for the winds, brass, and percussion,

who all enter at different times with short melodic figures. I wanted this movement to be

played very aggressively by all the instrumentalists, as it is the musical accompaniment to

a very exciting and intense sword fight between Romeo and Tybalt. After explaining to

the musicians what happens in the scene, I asked them to pretend that their best friend

had just been murdered in front of their eyes and that their only mission now was to kill

their friend’s murderer. Their parts are all marked with directions like fortissimo, con

brio, and furioso. Hence, it would be suitable for them to play angrily. Asking the

orchestra to play as percussively as possible on all accented notes, even to sometimes be

obnoxiously forceful on some parts, also aided in keeping up the energy of the piece.

Because the piece’s tempo is extremely fast, I had the musicians play at slower tempos

  18  

for the first few rehearsals in order for them to clearly learn their parts. Following those

sessions, I started to increase the tempo each time.

I expected the violas would have trouble with their entrance; requesting them not

to rush into their opening sixteenth notes and rather to wait the entire length of an eighth

note assisted them in being in time with the cellos and basses.

Example 9. Death of Tybalt – 1st-4th bars, violas and cellos

One place where I anticipated a rhythmic problem starts around rehearsal 64,

where the horns start playing on off-beats. I had them follow my baton’s click and to

listen to the tuba and timpani, who play on the beats. I also had them sustain each of the

chords, as they move up and down chromatically. This happens a couple more times

throughout the first half, and having the orchestra sustain each of the different chords

consequently improved the intonation.

Example 10. Death of Tybalt – Rehearsal 64, horns, low brass, and timpani

  19  

Rehearsal 69 was another area of expected rhythmic problems with the violins.

They enter with quick, little bursts of two thirty second notes-eighth note figures in

unison, but start to play off of each other after a measure. The second violins kept playing

the first violin rhythm. I had to explain this rhythm to them, as they clearly did not know

that this was the case. I had them practice it slowly, and then little by little, increased the

tempo. It took a few rehearsals to get this rhythm correct, but they finally were able to

execute it. It was extremely important for me to cue the second violins where they break

off from the rhythm of the first violins; this way, the violinists felt “safer” about the

section.

Example 11. Death of Tybalt – Rehearsal 69, violins

For the last adagio drammatico section, I decided to conduct at a tempo of q=60

instead of the marked slower q=48; since we were only performing the music (there were

no dancers on stage), I felt this necessary in order not to drag out the movement and to

keep the dramatic mood alive. I changed my beat pattern to a subdivided three here in

order to get a march-like effect from the orchestra, and then went into a legato three

pattern for the entrance of the horns and trumpets while still clicking each beat. This

helped keep everyone playing marcato style while the horns and trumpets played their

melody smoothly. Once again, the orchestra ran into a balance issue in this section. At the

  20  

entrance of the horn melody, I asked everyone to lower their dynamics from a fortissimo

to a forte in order for the melody to come through to the audience. The horns and

trumpets were asked to play using all their breath, as their parts here are marked

fortissimo, espressivo e drammatico (see Appendix A, Example A3 for full score).

  21  

Performance

By the day of the performance, I had decided to memorize all four movements. As

the conductor, I feel more comfortable not having to turn pages; also, I get to really show

character and emotion with my body when I am not distracted from looking at the score. I

learned all the areas where tempos and meters change, and more importantly, memorized

all the crucial cues.

It was clear that the musicians were a little nervous about performing the piece,

but also excited and filled with adrenaline. This caused the orchestra to rush the theme of

Montagues and Capulets, but they were more relaxed for Juliet, The Young Girl and

Romeo and Juliet. For Death of Tybalt, I had to make sure I was extremely precise with

my clicks and cueing in order for the musicians to stay together, since this was the most

technically challenging movement out of the four.

The performance overall was very successful, and I was extremely proud of these

young musicians who pulled through and played one of the most difficult pieces of music

in orchestral repertoire. It had been a dream of mine to conduct the music of Sergei

Prokofiev, and I am very thankful and honored that Dr. Roscigno gave me the

opportunity to work with these talented musicians.

  22  

Bibliography

Bennett, Karen. “Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Socialist Realism: A Case Study in Inter-Semiotc Translation.” Shakespeare and European Politics (2008): 1-12.

Bennett, Karen. “Star-Cross’d Lovers: Shakespeare and Prokofiev’s ‘Pas De Deux’ in

Romeo and Juliet.” The Cambridge Quarterly Vol. 32 No. 4 (2003): 311-347. Nestyev, Israel. Sergei Prokofiev: His Musical Life. Translated by Rose Prokofieva. New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. Prokofiev, Sergei. Romeo and Juliet, 1st Suite (Conductor’s Score). New York: Edwin F.

Kalmus, 1970. Prokofiev, Sergei. Romeo and Juliet, 2nd Suite (Conductor’s Score). New York: Edwin F.

Kalmus, 1970. Robinson, Harlow, trans. Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev. Boston: Northeastern

University Press, 1998. Robinson, Harlow. Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1987. Seroff, Victor. Sergei Prokofiev: A Soviet Tragedy. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968.

  23  

Appendix A: Musical Examples

Example A1. Montagues and Capulets – Rehearsal 7

  24  

Example A2. Romeo and Juliet – Rehearsal 56

  25  

Example A3. Death of Tybalt – Rehearsal 81

  26  

Appendix B: Concert Program

  27  

  28  

  29