However, by 1888 he had altered these notions. The actor Lucien Guitry asked him to write some incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's play, to which Tchaikovsky agreed. The planned performance was cancelled, but Tchaikovsky decided to finish what he had started, in the form of a concert overture. There is no musical enactment of the events of the play, or even a presentation of the key characters. The work adopts the same scheme he used in his other Shakespeare pieces, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet (1869, revised 1870 and 1880) and the symphonic fantasy The Tempest (1873), in using certain characteristics or emotional situations within the play. The essence of the work is the brooding atmosphere depicting Elsinore, but there is an obvious love theme, and a plaintive melody on the oboe can be seen to represent Ophelia.
Librettist | Alexandre Dumas and Paul Meurice ((after William Shakespeare)) |
Date of composition | 1891 |
Premiered | 1891, February 21st (Mikhailovsky Theatre) in Saint Petersburg, Russia |
First published | 1892 in Moscow, Russia |
Type | Incidental music |
Catalogue | Op. 67b |
Approx. duration | 48 minutes |
Spoken language | French |
Arrangement of | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Hamlet (overture-fantasia) in F minor, Op. 67a |
Instruments |
Orchestra
Voice (Soprano) - Ophélie Voice (Baritone) - Fossoyeur |
Autotranslations beta |
Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski: Hamlet, Op. 67b Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij: Hamlet, Op. 67b Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski: Hamlet, Op. 67b |