ST 7 (1) pp.

39–46 Intellect Limited 2014

The Soundtrack
Volume 7 Number 1
© 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/st.7.1.39_1

Samantha Lin
Queen’s University Belfast

‘How Silver-Sweet Sound

Lovers’ Tongues’: The music
of love and death in Franco
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet

Abstract Keywords
This article examines the ways in which the musical ‘love theme’ in Franco Zeffirelli’s Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet (1968) plays a crucial role in the careful negotiation of additions adaptation
and subtractions in terms of content, visuals, and audio alike – negotiations made Renaissance
necessary by the shift of medium from drama to film. Introduced as a song entitled literary film
‘What Is a Youth?’ in the film’s diegesis, the ‘love theme’ is a popular tune that leitmotif
has since been covered extensively in various versions and arrangements. However, British-Italian
despite the name attributed to the cue, the ‘love theme’ does not only represent the intertextuality
titular characters’ passion, but also the result of such love: their deaths. By consider- 1960s
ing the function of the ‘love theme’ in relation to both notions of love and death, this
article argues that the soundtrack is crucial in supporting Zeffirelli’s interpretation,
not only in terms of creating an emotional landscape for the film, but also on a wider
level in consolidating and translating the ideas of Shakespearean tragedy.

Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968), with its critical and commercial
success, has been credited as the adaptation that prompted a resurrection of
Shakespeare on-screen in the 1960s and 1970s (Jackson 2007: 4). As with its

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antecedents, George Cukor’s 1936 and Renato Castellani’s 1954 productions,

Zeffirelli’s interpretation endeavours to make the two lovers ‘attractive to the
cinema audience’ and strives to portray their society realistically (Tatspaugh
2007: 142). However, as a populist, Zeffirelli deviates from his predeces-
sors by casting two young, unknown and inexperienced actors in the titular
roles, ‘whose [attractive] looks projected his vision of the play’ (Welsh et al.
2002: 81). These vibrant performances, carried out in sun-drenched settings,
resonated with the youth of the 1960s, and rendered Shakespeare popular and
accessible to a younger generation, and the film became a box office sensation
(Crowl 2008: 54–55).
The film’s success is also due to two other important features in Zeffirelli’s
interpretation: striking visuals and a lush soundtrack. As Deborah Cartmell
suggests, ‘[Zeffirelli’s] films implicitly and daringly argue that pictures can
speak as loudly and as eloquently as Shakespeare’s words’ (2007: 224), a
claim that is evident in Romeo and Juliet as well as in his previous Shakespeare
adaptation, The Taming of the Shrew (Zeffirelli, 1967). However, this claim can
be expanded to include the musical landscape of his interpretations. In both
these films, Zeffirelli’s collaboration with composer Nino Rota results in a
soundtrack that is as sweeping and lavish as the imagetrack. When compared
to other Shakespeare auteurs such as Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles and
Kenneth Branagh, Zeffirelli possesses a heightened interest and appreciation
for a film’s auditory component, a result of his extensive directorial work on
the operatic stage.
The music of Romeo and Juliet consists of a highly melodic original score
centred around a ‘love theme’, a popular tune that has since been covered
extensively in various versions and arrangements. Here, composer Nino
Rota demonstrates his flair for the melodic, and specifically for film-score
composing: ‘[A] Rota tune is one you can grasp instantly, readily recognise
when it is re-used and forget immediately after. This is very effective for film
music, where easy recognisability and unobtrusiveness are equally prized’
(Dyer 2010:  22). The ‘love theme’ works in conjunction with the imagetrack
and the language in order to add thematic cohesion to the film and, more
specifically, to popularize and dramatize the play’s concerns with love and
death. Indeed, a detailed consideration of the ‘love theme’ challenges Ace
Pilkington’s suggestion that ‘Zeffirelli loses the sense of Fate as an outside
force driving the play’ (1994: 172), and can ultimately refute Jack Jorgens’s
criticism that the film lacks maturity and a ‘clear-sighted calm and sense
of inevitability’ ([1977] 1991: 91). On the contrary, as the ‘love theme’ in
its entirety is associated with both love and death, the music is capable of
‘[adumbrating] Romeo’s “my mind misgives/Some consequence yet hanging
in the stars” (1.4.106–7)’ (Rothwell 2004: 128). The musical prolepsis found
within the ‘love theme’ reinforces the tragic mode by offering a level of audi-
tory engagement on top of the visual and the linguistic, thereby resulting in
an interpretation with a constant drive towards its tragic ending.
The reappearance of this ‘love theme’ throughout the film can be difficult
to study, as the theme returns on numerous occasions in a range of snippets,
keys and instrumentation that do not make sense on an aesthetic and formal
level as music in itself. Hence, a consideration of the score must heed Royal
Brown’s suggestion that film music should be approached not according to
tonal and musical structures, but to the dramatic structures of film (1994: 46).
In addition, Kevin Donnelly argues that film music ‘relies on a logic that is not
an organic part of the music but a negotiation between the logic of film and

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 ‘How Silver-Sweet Sound Lovers’ Tongues’

Figure 1: Theme A.

the logic of music’ (2001: 3). This is particularly pertinent when it comes to
the harmonies and tonalities of the ‘love theme’, as its musical developments
maintain a symbiotic relationship with the non-auditory cinematic compo-
nents of Romeo and Juliet.
The ‘love theme’ makes its first appearance as a diegetic song at the
Capulet ball during which Romeo and Juliet meet. This song, ‘What Is
a Youth?’, was composed by Nino Rota with lyrics by Eugene Walter, and
contains all aspects of the ‘love theme’ as a whole. The song consists of two
distinct musical themes, A (Figure 1) and B (Figure 2), which are connected
by a short bridge. The ternary form of the song allows for a distinct contrast
between both themes: A is in a resolute minor tonality, while B is in its rela-
tive major.
These two themes return separately on several occasions to support the
cohesion and endurance of Romeo and Juliet’s passion, as well as to provide a
constant reminder of their imminent deaths: theme A appears non-diegetically
during their first meeting, their balcony scene, their bedroom scene and their
final tomb scene; on the other hand, theme B occurs, most notably, as the
diegetic songs at their marriage and at both funerals. Although the overall
‘love theme’ can be referred to as a ‘leitmotif’, it would be more specific to call
these two distinct themes ‘auditory metonyms’, whereby each theme is aurally
associated and contiguous with Romeo and Juliet’s love and death. These two
auditory metonyms contribute to the ‘filmic conceits of sight, sound, and

Figure 2: Theme B.

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music […] yoked together to visualise Shakespeare’s verbalisations’ (Rothwell

2004: 128). However, although Kenneth Rothwell focuses on the concept of
‘visualization’ here, it would be more apt to consider Zeffirelli’s film as a reali-
zation of Shakespeare’s written play in a holistic, audio-visual capacity. Just as
the imagetrack makes references to the ‘sun’ and ‘hands’ that feature promi-
nently in the play, so the soundtrack gives voice to the concerns of love and
death, the two driving forces of both play and film.
The lyrics themselves contain faux Renaissance language in a type of
linguistic imitation functioning by way of cultural citation. These words refer-
ence particular lines in the play: ‘A rose will bloom/It then will fade’ recalls
Friar Laurence’s ‘The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade’ (4.1.99). On the
whole, the lyrics, penned in the 1960s, seek to imitate Elizabethan speech.
Here, the words are elevated in their register so that they blend seamlessly
with Shakespeare’s language, which is retained in the film’s dialogue. The
song, stating that roses, youths and maids alike will fade, also reflects the
Renaissance topos of the inevitability of death, as well as a hint of carpe diem.
More so than with the inclusion of Shakespeare’s words in the screenplay,
these conscious efforts to align the lyrics with an ‘authentic’ Renaissance
vernacular indicate a desire for legitimization in Zeffirelli’s interpretation.
However, this attempt at legitimization is undermined by some more
modern phrasing: the opening lyrics, ‘What is the youth? Impetuous fire/
What is a maid? Ice and desire’, contain a set of two questions followed by
short, metaphorical answers without further elaboration. This is dissimilar
to the longer, clearer phrasing found in Renaissance love poetry and songs.
On a musical level, the melody and harmonies do not recall the Renaissance.
This dichotomous coexistence in the song allows the film to remain culturally
elevated while simultaneously appealing to a popular audience. Furthermore,
‘What Is a Youth?’ challenges Brown’s assertion that songs are relatively
ineffective in combining the ‘musical and the cinematic symbol’ within a
soundtrack due to a song’s lack of abstraction (1994: 40). Here, the deliberate
use of lyrics effectively captures the film’s two primary themes, as the words
highlight the futility of Romeo and Juliet’s love and supplement the foreshad-
owing of their imminent deaths.
‘What Is a Youth?’, sung by the character Leonardo, features diegetically
during the vital moment in the film where Romeo and Juliet become fully
aware of each other’s presence, and subsequently engage in their first conver-
sation. According to David Lindley, the lovers’ first meeting at the dance is
responsible for initiating the play’s tragic actions, and their mutual awareness
is ‘prefaced by Romeo’s rather heavy-handedly proleptic fears that the night’s
revels will lead to death (1.4.106–11)’ (2006: 131). Hence, introducing the ‘love
theme’ in this particular scene provides the musical prolepsis of not only the
romance that will blossom between the two, but also the deaths that will result
from their interaction. In the absence of the prologue from Zeffirelli’s film,
this musical prolepsis serves an even greater function: there is no chorus to
announce ‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life’ (Prologue 6), but there
is a court musician singing ‘Death will come soon to hush us along’. Richard
Dyer’s assessment of the music’s movement into the non-diegetic mid-scene
also supports such a prolepsis, where both the visual shadows and the music
‘[give] them only a temporary and fragile cover […] in a public realm that
condemns their love’ (2010: 91).
Theme A’s main role is in characterizing the love between the titular
characters, and returns non-diegetically on many occasions throughout.

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The melody itself consists of a melancholic minor tonality with several leaps
that hint at melodrama, providing an apt representation of the young lovers.
Although the theme is featured extensively in several scenes containing
private interactions between the two, it is scattered and fragmented, moves
across different instruments and flits from key to key: across the four scenes
depicting their initial encounter, their balcony interaction, their pillow talk and
their final mausoleum moments, theme A is heard on strings, lute, flute and
oboe and by full orchestra, in the minor keys of C, C#, E, Eb, F, A and B. This
kind of treatment, although incongruent with traditional musical associations
and progressions, highlights the nuances of the love in question, and thereby
adds both breadth and depth to a relationship that, though it belongs to two
youths, contains the maturity and gravity necessary to resolve the ‘ancient
grudge’ between their families, and ultimately to ‘bury their parents’ strife’.
One key example of theme A’s ability to mark these nuances is evident
during the balcony scene. When Juliet utters her first words, ‘Ay me’ is
accompanied by the theme in C-sharp minor sounding gently on the oboe,
a woodwind instrument that evokes the pastoral mode and consequently
suggests the necessity of leaving Veronian society in order for their burgeon-
ing love to survive. Such a generic notion is also found in Shakespeare’s
pastoral comedies, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It.
The music then disappears as conversation progresses, but this silence facili-
tates theme A’s second entry on a lute in A minor, after Romeo declares that
the only ‘satisfaction’ he requires is ‘the exchange of thy love’s faithful vow
for mine’. Here, the gentle, plucked strings not only recall the Renaissance
instrument and sound a subtle reminder of the film’s ‘authentic’ setting,
evoking a serenade sung beneath the balcony, but also suggest the tender-
ness and vulnerability of the lovers, particularly of Romeo. After several other
re-entries within this scene, theme A ends with the couple’s parting, with
the music, now in E minor, swelling in a full orchestra to capture their almost
overwhelming passion, as their joined hands de-interlace and the close-up
zooms out to mark their separation. The melody then finishes on the oboe,
returning to the instrumentation used at the beginning of the scene and reaf-
firming the enclosed privacy of the balcony, an artificial removal from society
that is vital for their survival. Again, these numerous key changes would not
make any musical sense if this were autonomous music, but are indicative of
an abundant love. Using various key signatures effectively demonstrates the
scope of their feelings, unrestrained by a singular key, while the same relative
pitch in the melodic line remains steadfast in the fundamental way of express-
ing such love.
The perfect-fourth interval of theme A, situated near the end of the
melody, is one aspect of the theme that acquires particular significance at the
film’s close. This interval, introduced in C-sharp minor, is first used to under-
score the dramatic moment when Romeo pulls Juliet towards him at the ball,
initiating the first two-shot in which they appear together in private. After its
numerous reappearance in a number of keys and instrumentations through-
out the film, theme A achieves its only cohesion in the decisive suicidal
actions made first by Romeo, which are later mirrored by Juliet. Their deci-
sions, though set six minutes apart, are both marked by the same perfect-
fourth interval on strings in E-flat minor. This similarity of key signature,
particularly when viewed in light of the fluidity of transformations previously
applied to the theme, provides an auditory connection between Romeo and
Juliet in their final moments, which occur separately. Just as the visual parallels

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Samantha Lin

of the extreme close-ups, subdued colour palette and chiaroscuro bind them
through death, the identical musical material achieves the same connection
on an auditory level. When used to supplement the visuals and the dialogue,
theme A, with its various manifestations, becomes musically symbolic of the
love story at the centre of the film.
Theme B, on the other hand, retains a close association with the film’s
two major deaths. Its initial appearance in ‘What Is a Youth?’ is presented as
a pavane-like melody, serving as another attempt at capturing Renaissance
authenticity; however, theme B undergoes several reconfigurations, transform-
ing from the stately dance in duple time to the eventual lament in triple time.
This treatment parallels theme A’s movements across keys, instrumentations
and scenes, but instead of love, its metonymic association is primarily with
death. Rothwell notes that this melody, more versatile due to its major tonality,
‘[defines] both wedding and funeral, implicated in Juliet’s “Come, cords, come,
nurse, I’ll to my wedding-bed, /And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!”
(3.2.136–7)’ (2004: 129). When paired together, this juxtaposition enhances
the film’s driving force of tragic inevitability. Unlike theme A, which remains
constrained to the non-diegetic after its initial appearance, theme B returns to
the film’s diegesis on two separate occasions. While theme A exists solely in
private moments between the two, musically indicating a similar spatial limi-
tation on their passion, theme B’s diegetic appearances set their deaths firmly
in the public eye, indicating that their destruction plays a vital role in restoring
order to the strife-ridden society.
The first instance of theme B’s diegetic appearance is at Romeo and
Juliet’s wedding, where the theme becomes the musical setting of ‘Ave Maris
Stella’/‘Hail Star of the Sea’, a ninth-century plainsong Vespers hymn to the
Virgin Mary, sung at evening services. In the two verses of Rota’s composi-
tion, only the first follows the text (Hail, star of the sea, /loving Mother of God,
/and also always a virgin, /Happy gate of heaven), while the second contains
a partial reworking of another Marian hymn, Ave Maria (Hail Mary, /full of
grace, /Hail Mary, /the Lord is with thee). Another Marian antiphon, ‘Salve
Regina’ – which Rothwell incorrectly identifies as a ‘Magnificat’ (Rothwell
2004:  129) – makes an appearance earlier in the film when Romeo and the
Nurse converse in the same church. The musical setting of this plainsong hymn
is not of Rota’s creation, but is a Gregorian chant hailing from the Liber Usualis
(Benedictines of Solesmes, 1962), which was the official book of plainsong for
the Catholic Church at the time of the film’s production. When coupled with
Zeffirelli’s invocation of traditional liturgy, Rota’s ‘original’ setting of ‘Ave
Maris Stella’ is given an artificial religious ‘authenticity’ that contributes to the
Italian Renaissance milieu. The clean sounds of the sung liturgical Latin – with
only five vowel sounds and an absence of diphthongs – also draw attention to
Juliet’s chastity and virginity at the time of her marriage.
The second diegetic reappearance of theme B features the same song,
but is sung at Juliet’s ‘funeral’. The lyrics, based on the same text and hailing
the Virgin Mary, have now become ironic, as Juliet is no longer a virgin; her
subsequent ‘corruption’ of losing her virginity is closely tied to the impend-
ing tragedy. The music itself shifts from the non-diegetic to the diegetic: this
appearance of theme B is first heard on strings while the camera zooms into
a close-up of a ‘dead’ Juliet, is then repeated on the French horn over a long
shot of Friar John leaving with Friar Laurence’s letter, and finally manifests in
the diegesis as the film cuts to another long shot, this time depicting Juliet’s
funeral procession. The series of editing, combined with the changes in

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instrumentation from mellow strings to the foreboding horn, emphasize the

inevitability of their deaths. Here is also the first time the music of theme  B
correlates with an explicit representation of death on-screen: the wedding
song has become a dirge; the celebration, a lament.
Such a use of theme B to mark death is consolidated in the final scene,
where the music returns non-diegetically, in the same key of C and with the
same harmonic counterpoint, to accompany the procession and Laurence
Olivier’s closing words. Olivier’s presence, by virtue of his association with
Shakespearean theatre and cinema, adds a level of cultural authority and
solemnity to the consolidation of tragedy in the final scene and the overall film.
Furthermore, the major tonality of this lament, in addition to the on-screen
reconciliation between the Montagues and Capulets, suggests a response
to the two deaths that is solemn yet hopeful: their demise is necessary for
obtaining peace and restoring order to Veronian society. After the various
manifestations of theme B throughout the film, the resolution in the music
itself provides an auditory expression of the catharsis achieved at the close
of this Shakespearean tragedy.
The soundtrack of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet complements the image-
track and the language in conveying the tragic element of this cinematic
adaptation, but its function is both explicit and implicit. On the surface, the
‘love theme’ is simply a romantic leitmotif; however, a more careful consid-
eration suggests that the two distinct themes within the leitmotif form
two auditory metonyms that play a vital role in maintaining the associa-
tion between the titular characters, and in emphasizing the inescapable link
between love and death. Although Zeffirelli’s interpretation is regarded as a
popular film brimming with excess, the complexities within the soundtrack
assist in elevating his Romeo and Juliet into an adaptation that is both acces-
sible to a wider and younger audience, and also exhibits the finer subtleties
of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Mark Thornton Burnett for his invaluable feedback and
continuous academic guidance; the organizers and participants of the
Cinesonika 3 conference; David Stevens for identifying and providing refer-
ences to ‘Salve Regina’; Kevin Murray, George Twigg and Maria de Vries for
commenting on this article in its numerous stages; and Bill Walker for his
insightful criticism, fresh perspectives and stimulating conversations about
Shakespeare and music.

References
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Suggested citation
Lin, S. (2014), ‘“How Silver-Sweet Sound Lovers’ Tongues”: The music of
love and death in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet’, The Soundtrack 7: 1,
pp. 39–46, doi: 10.1386/st.7.1.39_1

Contributor details
Samantha Lin holds a combined BSc/BA from the University of New South
Wales, Australia, and an MA in English literature from Durham University.
She is currently undertaking a Ph.D. at Queen’s University Belfast, where
her interdisciplinary research investigates the function of the soundtrack in
Shakespeare film adaptations.
Contact: School of English, 2 University Square, Queen’s University Belfast,
Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland.
E-mail: slin04@qub.ac.uk

Samantha Lin has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was
submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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