Tchaikovsky, P.: Hamlet / Romeo and Juliet Vladimir Jurowski & Russian National Orchestra

• 1 Overture 09:09
• 2 Act I Scene 1: Melodrame: First appearance of Ghost 01:13
• 3 Act I Scene 4: Fanfare: A Flourish of Trumpets 00:25
• 4 Act I Scene 4: Melodrame: Appearance of Ghost to Hamlet 00:40
• 5 Act I Scene 5: Melodrame: The Ghost tells Hamlet of his father's murder 03:26
• 6 Act II: Entr'acte: Prelude to Scene 1 and first appearance in the play of Ophelia 02:55
• 7 Act II Scene 2: Fanfare: The Dumb Show enters 00:25
• 8 Act II Scene 2: Fanfare: A Room in the Castle - Flourish 00:27
• 9 Act III: Entr'acte: Prelude to Scene 1 which features Hamlet's soliloquy 03:04
• 10 Act III Scene 2: Melodrame: The Players enact the Scene of the Poisoning 02:21
• 11 Act IV: Entr'acte: Prelude to Scene 1 - A Room in the Castle 07:38
• 12 Act IV Scene 5: Scene d'Ophelie: Elsinore - Ophelia's Mad Scene 02:19
• 13 Act IV Scene 5: Deuxieme scene d'Ophelie: Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers 02:26
• 14 Act V: Entr'acte: Prelude to Scene 1 - A Churchyard 04:16
• 15 Act V Scene 1: Chant du Fossoyeur 01:17
• 16 Act V Scene 2: Fanfare: Trumpets sound 00:27
• 17 Act V Scene 2: Marche finale 00:40
• 18 Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1st version, 1869) 16:32
• Total Runtime 59:40

Info for Tchaikovsky, P.: Hamlet / Romeo and Juliet

There were not many composers of standing, who worked equally hard on absolute and programme music. And of those composers, only few were destined to achieve extraordinary results in both genres. One of them was Peter Tchaikovsky. Probably his passion for reading stood him in good stead when inspired by high literature; after all, Tchaikovsky considered “reading as ranking amongst the greatest moments of happiness”. In his programmatic works, he did not try to elaborate on a literary programme or the detailed portrayal of a plot; rather, he was attracted to the psyche of the figures depicted, to the development of their characters, or, for instance, to the emotional impasses and whirlpools, into which they manoeuvred themselves, or into which they were drawn.

Anyhow, Tchaikovsky used three plays by the great Shakespeare on which to model various works: The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. He turned them into a symphonic fantasy (The Tempest, Op. 18), two fantasy-overtures (Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, Op. 67) and incidental music (Hamlet, Op. 67 bis). Just like many other composers, Tchaikovsky was inspired by a disastrous love, which led him to ruin. It is interesting to note that the young composer was truly encouraged to compose by Mili Balakirev. Balakirev suggested that Tchaikovsky use Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a model for his following work - he probably knew about Tchaikovsky’s unrequited love for the Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt and assumed that the story of the famous Shakespearian lovers would encourage him to get down to the composition.

“Think you know your Tchaikovsky? Think again…..Hamlet gives us a glimpse into a composer with a theatre director’s sensibility – he knows when to lend urgency to the players without overwhelming them, the music heightening but never upstaging….Jurowski and his forces offer playing of drive and passion.” (GRAMOPHONE)

Vladimir Jurowski
Russian National Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski was born in Moscow, but in 1990 moved with his family to Germany, where he completed his musical studies at the High Schools of Music in Dresden and in Berlin. In 1995 he made a highly successful debut at the Wexford Festival conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, which launched his international career. Since then he has been a guest at some of the world’s leading opera houses such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra Bastille de Paris, Welsh National Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Komische Oper Berlin and Metropolitan Opera, New York.

In January 2001 Vladimir Jurowski took up the position as Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera and in May 2006 was also appointed Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He also holds the title “Principal Artist” of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and from 2005 to 2009 served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra.

Vladimir Jurowski is a regular guest with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Berlin and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the Dresden Staatskapelle, and in the US with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. Highlights of the 2010/11 season and beyond include his debuts with the Vienna Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and return visits to the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Dresden Staatskapelle and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

His operatic appearances have included Jenufa, The Queen of Spades andHansel und Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera, Parsifal and Wozzeck at the Welsh National Opera, War and Peace at the Opera National de Paris, Eugene Onegin at La Scala Milan, andIolantaat the Dresden Semperoper, as well as Die Zauberflöte, La Cenerentola, Otello, Macbeth, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, Don Giovanni, The Rakes’ Progress and Peter Eötvös’Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne Opera. Future engagements include new productions of Die Meistersinger and The Cunning Little Vixen at Glyndebourne, Die Frau ohne Schattenat the Metropolitan Opera and Ruslan and Ludmilaat the Bolshoi Theatre.


Russian National Orchestra
The Russian National Orchestra has been in demand throughout the music world ever since its 1990 Moscow premiere. Of the orchestra's 1996 debut at the BBC Proms in London, the Evening Standard wrote, "They played with such captivating beauty that the audience gave an involuntary sigh of pleasure." More recently, they were described as "a living symbol of the best in Russian art" (Miami Herald) and "as close to perfect as one could hope for" (Trinity Mirror).

The first Russian orchestra to perform at the Vatican and in Israel, the RNO maintains an active international tour schedule, appearing in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Guest artists performing with the RNO on tour include conductors Vladimir Jurowski, Nicola Luisotti, Antonio Pappano, Alan Gilbert, Carlo Ponti and Patrick Summers, and soloists Martha Argerich, Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Pinchas Zukerman, Sir James Galway, Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Steven Isserlis, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Simone Kermes and Renée Fleming, among many others. Popular with radio audiences worldwide, RNO concerts are regularly aired by National Public Radio in the United States and by the European Broadcasting Union.

The RNO is unique among the principal Russian ensembles as a private institution funded with the support of individuals, corporations and foundations in Russia and throughout the world. In recognition of both its artistry and path-breaking structure, the Russian Federation recently awarded the RNO the first ever grant to a non-government orchestra.

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