Frustrated by the delays in getting his full-length ballet Romeo and Juliet premiered-both the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Kirov in Leningrad, which commissioned it, originally rejected it as "undanceable"-Prokofiev assembled two suites for concert use, adding a third some years later. The second suite is the one most often encountered; it was first performed in Leningrad in 1937.

The half-hour suite does not follow the action (which hews closely to Shakespeare); instead, it is a series of character pieces and scenes, almost a "greatest hits" collection drawn from the full work. The number-one hit leads off the suite: Montagues and Capulets. This begins with a gradually layered brass chord that results in a crushing dissonance soon resolved into soft string chords, all of which represents the conflict between Romeo's family and Juliet's. The sequence is repeated once, then goes straight into what in the full ballet is called Dance of the Knights; this is the heavy, snarling, angular march- like music to which the macho Capulet men dance at their masked ball. This contrasts with a delicate, somewhat unsettling minor-mode woodwind minuet for Juliet and her suitor, the young nobleman Paris. The knights' music returns, again exploiting the orchestra's lowest registers.

The Young Juliet, with its skittering string scales and playful use of woodwinds and light percussion, begins as a portrait of a squirmy teenager. A more tender clarinet theme represents Juliet's innocence. After a brief return of the opening material, broad, lyrical themes for the woodwinds and cello, and eventually the other strings, suggest the girl's budding emotional maturity. A slow, sensitive coda perhaps alludes to the tragedy in her immediate future. Friar Laurence is a plodding but sympathetic portrait of the man of the cloth who facilitates Romeo and Juliet's romance-and, inadvertently, their deaths. The man is represented by a solemn legato theme kept low in the orchestra.

Dance has nothing to do with the plot. It's a light, brilliant scherzo, something of a tarantella, with the ever-rising tune melting from one brass or woodwind instrument to another in mid-phrase. Romeo at Juliet's Before Parting opens with a wistful flute solo-the flute represents Juliet through much of the score. This is a slow, quiet, nocturnal segment that begins to open up with a short horn phrase that leads straight into the cadential chords associated with Romeo near the beginning of the full ballet. The music's ardor and instrumental thickness gradually increase, mingling the Romeo and Juliet material, then the ecstatic, yearning horn theme breaks out in full, topped off with the Romeo motif. This material repeats, fuller and louder, yet ultimately backs down into a long, mysterious passage that foreshadows the main theme from the tomb scene at the story's (and suite's) end.

Dance of the Antilles Girls is brief, quiet, and rather ritualistic, with another sinuous, upward-reaching melody that is passed among the orchestral soloists. Romeo at the Grave of Juliet is drawn from the ballet's concluding pages; it begins with a long, slow, anguished theme for the strings that is taken up briefly by the horns. The other brass instruments enter with their own slight variants. The earlier love music struggles forward, now in a minor mode, but is overpowered by the brass with the funereal material that opened the section. A delicate reminiscence in the woodwinds of the love music eases the suite to a quiet, resigned conclusion.



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