There are two pairs of works in Tchaikovsky's oeuvre that are often confused, the first couple being the Op. 3 opera Voyevoda (1867-1868) and Voyevoda, the symphonic ballad for orchestra, Op. 78. The other confusable pair of siblings are the 1864 overture for orchestra The Storm, Op. 76, and the work under examination here, The Tempest, from 1873, a later composition, despite the higher opus number of the first work. The Tempest is a fantasia inspired by the Shakespeare play of the same name. It is not as well known as Tchaikovsky's other orchestral work after Shakespeare, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, but is nearly on the artistic level on that powerfully dramatic work. Like Romeo and Juliet it followed a written-out program; The Tempest is less complex than Romeo and Juliet partly because that program is itself simpler in structure. The Romeo and Juliet program was written by the composer Balakirev and specified a complex correspondence of themes with the characters in the play, but the program for The Tempest, written by an art historian named Stasov, specified only a loose sequence of scenes.
