Tchaikovsky was a late starter as a composer - he had studied law as a young man, and worked as a clerk in a law office before taking up music as a profession. Romeo and Juliet was the fourth of Tchaikovsky's published works, written in 1869 when he was 29. He composed it in the aftermath of a mild love affair with a Belgian soprano who was visiting Moscow - the only woman to whom Tchaikovsky ever admitted feeling a sexual attraction. But it was a brief affair: she soon married a Polish singer from Warsaw and Tchaikovsky was not heartbroken.

A stronger influence was the composer Balakirev. He was just a few years older than Tchaikovsky but, having been writing music since his teens, was a more prolific and experienced composer. Balakirev, who had already composed an overture on Shakespeare's King Lear, suggested both the subject matter and the overall shape and key structure of Romeo and Juliet.

The idea found favour with Tchaikovsky, who wrote the complete work in a matter of a few weeks in the autumn of 1869, and arranged for its first performance in Moscow in March 1870. He revised it later the same year, completely rewriting both the introduction and the ending. This revised - and greatly improved - version was first performed in 1872, and Tchaikovsky made further minor changes in 1880. This final version is the version played today.

The opening section depicts Friar Laurence in his cell, sorrowfully contemplating the tragic tale. In the fiery allegro we hear the warring families of the Montagues and Capulets, followed by the first appearance of the great love theme on the clarinet. After a virtuosic development, the love theme swells to a huge climax, but is brutally swept away by the warring families. In the moving final bars, a hymn-like lament for the dead lovers is hammered home by the brutal reality of the final chords.