Peter Tchaikovsky based the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet, which he composed in October and November 1869, on Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. The idea of the work had been suggested to him by Mili Balakirev. The first performance of the overture in Moscow on 4 March 1870 at the Eighth Symphony Concert of the Russian Musical Society was conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein. After the performance Mili Balakirev criticized certain aspects of the work, an thus, in the summer of 1870, Tchaikov...