Recommended music:
Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, we’re still listening to music featured in A View To A Kill!
Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky left quite a legacy of music from the Romantic Period before his passing in 1893. Some of his compositions you’re likely familiar with include ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,’ ‘The Nutcracker,’ and the ‘1812 Overture.’ His work still remains relevant and popular more than 100 years later, with more than 5 million streams on Spotify each month.
While ‘A View to a Kill’ composer John Barry never directly credited Tchaikovsky explicitly as an influence, he has acknowledged Dmitri Shostakovich, also known as the ‘Tchaikovsky of the 20th Century’, as shaping his Romantic vernacular.
The campiness of the Roger Moore Bond films was a perfect fit for multiple famous Tchaikovsky ballet scores. Both ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as well as ‘Swan Lake’ show up when Bond is wooing KGB agent Pola Ivanova in a Japanese spa. The music builds up before Ivanova delivers the memorable line “The bubbles tickle my… Tchaikovsky.” 😄
The same ‘Fantasy Overture’ from Romeo and Juliet was also used in Moonraker in a light-hearted scene when Jaws meets his love interest, Dolly. There are a plethora of ways you could listen to Tchaikovsky, but this 1960 release has the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture on the B-side, and is also in heavy rotation around Christmastime with The Nutcracker Suite on the main side.
58. Tchaikovsky, Philharmonia Orchestra, Igor Markevitch – Romeo And Juliet / Nutcracker Suite
Dale's Toys 