Romeo and Juliet

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 After listening to all the music relates to Romeo and Juliet and other classical music how does it affect your listening?

Music has an amazing ability to express human emotions, which even words sometimes cannot express.  We often hypothesize about a composer's mindset based on his music as it often becomes a expression of his inner distress defined by anger from loss and dissatisfaction from failures although it might not always be the case, since this is a generalization rather than analytical understanding.  When we talk about emotions in music, we always talk about emotions in composers or listeners but the discussion should be about describing music in emotive terms as it does not take special understanding to differentiate between a sad and a joyous piece. I have always been a passive listener, with minimum ability to differentiate between compositions; classical music was always a background entertainment for me with no depth, but as I ventured through the class, I have been going through a musical transformation, as all classical music drives me into an internal search to connect all the invisible dots in the composer’s mind.

It baffles me how insensitive to music I was, as I often used to have Pandora radio playing while I was engulfed in other activities. Before I would never wonder why the rhythm is in low tune or in high tune or whether the music is trying to tell a story or trying to create images of life, how to use different instruments or express different feelings and emotions; I hardly knew any instruments by their name or the sound they produced. I used to listen to classical music when I came home from work or school and while changing, making the bed or cleaning my room, I used to hum along with the melodies. When guest used to visit us, I loved to play the classical music since it created quite a positive impression about me! I used to listen to music without thinking, without considering the true beauty of its sound; I was absentmindedly listening to music without ever trying to deepen my understanding of it

Having a nice sleep at night is very important to me, when I found a research article regarding the issue that music improves sleep quality in students, I was excited! The researcher investigated the effects of music on sleep quality in young participants with poor sleep and found music can reduce sympathetic nervous system activity, decrease anxiety, heart and may have a positive effects on sleep via muscle relaxation and distraction from thoughts. The research results showed that music could significantly improve sleep quality; so relaxing classical music is an effective intervention in reducing sleep problems. And so, after encountering the research, I became very familiar with Beethoven’s pieces like Piano Sonatas, Allegro molto e con brio, largo con gran espressione, because of their soothing tone I never stayed awake more than ten minutes and they helped me into deep slumber too. I was habituated with classical music in a very different way; without knowing the depth of the gold mine, I began digging!

When I first listened to Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet, Overture Fantasy,” as a layperson to music, I couldn’t figure out what was happening in it. I couldn’t solve the mystery behind every tune. I didn’t even know how to simplify every tune in my mind and it was really frustrating. It took me awhile to become a decent listener but then another problem arose because I did not know any instruments used or their sounds. I researched about them, trying to figure out the sounds of some instruments used. And after watching Zeffirelli's movie of Romeo and Juliet (1968) and reading the play, I tried to listen to the pieces again and again and tried to connect the scenes with the music. Nowadays I pay my full attention while listening to any of his works. I try to follow every track to find connection with the scenes from the play, is the music expressing that scene through its tune.

Eventually I listened to the piece several times, cautiously that’s helps me to differentiate the scenes by listening to the sound. After listening to “Romeo and Juliet: overture-fantasy” for the eighth time, I was able to figure out Tchaikovsky applied timpani in fights and tension scenes. If the music seems too ferocious or reached it’s climax, I realized, the tune is referring to the tension scenes between the two houses. I figured out in the entire composition, the loudest parts reflect the sword fights in the play. When he used the harp, violin, cello or flute in low tune that refers the scenes between the lovers. There is also some repetition of the fragment of the lovers’ theme with violin and cellos in deep heavy tone, which express the separation events between the pairs. There is no doubt that Tchaikovsky was able to compose a perfect music for the tragic star-crossed lovers’.

After Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet, Overture Fantasy,” I encountered Berlioz’s dramatic symphony for the first time and I noticed it has a very different approach. Although I had some experience with Tchaikovsky’s music, Berlioz’s symphony was really to decipher.  At first I thought he didn’t follow the play at all which confused me and so it was difficult for me to figure out the composition’s hidden gems. Whenever I used to listen to the symphony, I also read the words of Emile Deschamps along with the music because I wanted to stay aware of where the story and the music coincide. Sometimes I was lost and I used to spend considerable amount of time to find a way out of his rainforest composition.

I used the oldest trick in the book: listening to the piece over and over again, so that I can interpret the significance behind every note in the composition, trying to connect how the music really expresses the emotions of the scene. I came to observe that Berlioz used high-pitched human voice as an instrument; I never expected such an unique approach and it surprised me quite a lot. Even after listening to it for third time, I found the piece to be abstract because the words were in French which is why I don’t feel comfortable after listening to it countless number of times. But during my ninth time listening to the symphony, I noticed Berlioz changed the story and while reading the dialogue along the music, I was crestfallen because the scene where Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo death, the music doesn’t express the deep anguish of Juliet's innocent heart and at the very end of the symphony, instead of Prince, Berlioz used Friar to draw the curtain on his symphony along with a music which express spiritual depth. The whole symphony was in very low tempo and it has a sudden outburst of high notes at high decibels, which mirrors the ups and downs of the tragic love of Romeo and Juliet.

After experiencing Romeo and Juliet through the glasses of classical music, I started to acknowledge music in a very different way. From my personal reflections,  I realized that the best way to understand music is by being aware of the rhythm of the notes. Only listening to music is not enough, as good listeners are good analyzers, which opens doors of new possibilities for them. Scholars like Copland has divided listening to music into three categories: sensuous, expressive and sheerly musical plane and before encountering composers like Tchaikovsky, I was drowning in the sensuous plane without even realizing it. But as I ventured into their work I rediscovered music and swam to the expressive plane, but sadly I am no where near the sheerly expressive plane, but I will try my best and I believe with time and commitment I will become a much better listener, maybe not as skilled as composers like Berlioz, but I will be much closer to his level than I am today!

Classical music is an unique creation of men as they impel us to think about the hidden gems and logic in every rhythm; the emotion that it can create in human mind are not always expressible in words. After my traverse through the world of classical music, I believe that classical music can only be described using rich words to truly express the beautiful pictures they paint. Ordinary words will not be enough to express the precise meaning behind every rhythm as they have their own world. If you are lucky enough to enter the world of their's, take some time to enjoy them as they will enhance your life.