Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream London Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi Choir & Sir John Eliot Gardiner

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847): A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Op. 21, MWV P 3:
• 1Allegro di molto06:22
• 2Tempo I05:54
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 61, MWV M 13:
• 3Act I Scene 1: Ay me! For aught that I could ever read (Lysander)01:03
• 4Act II: Scherzo04:17
• 5Act II Scene 1: How now, spirit! (Puck, Fairy)03:32
• 6Act II Scene 1: Fairies' March02:12
• 7Act II Scene 2: Come, now a roundel and a fairy song (Titania) - Song with Chorus: Ye spotted snakes (First Fairy, Second Fairy, Chorus of Fairies)04:40
• 8Act II Scene 2: What thou seest, when thou dost wake (Oberon, Puck)01:41
• 9Act II: Intermezzo04:19
• 10Act III: Nocturne06:11
• 11Act IV Scene 1: Be as thou wast wont to be (Oberon, Puck, Theseus)03:18
• 12Act IV Scene 1: Wedding March05:12
• 13Act V: Finale06:25
• Total Runtime55:06

Info for Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Continuing his award-winning cycle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads the London Symphony Orchestra, his Monteverdi Choir and three talented, young, actors from the Guildhall School in a landmark performance of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was performed as part of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. To mark the celebrations, Gardiner produced a special version of the work featuring some cuts to the original movements, in his words, ‘removing all of the music relating to the Mechanicals and thus focusing on the world of the fairies and the human lovers.’

Mendelssohn, who adored Shakespeare’s writings, composed his concert overture based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1827 at the young age of 17 after having read a German translation of the play in 1826. The overture was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece and quickly became a popular favourite throughout Europe. Years later in 1843 he was asked by the King of Prussia to provide a score for an entire production. It’s made of 14 short works based on themes and moods from the original overture, with a broadly romantic sound although classical in style and structure. Music scholar George Grove described it as 'the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music” and reviewer Peter Read says 'an astonishing feat of imagination and perception, one of the perfect acts of musical interpretation arising out of early-nineteenth-century sensibilities that, nearly two centuries later, is still channeling our understanding of Shakespeare’s disarming examination of the workings of our subconscious'.

London Symphony Orchestra
Monteverdi Choir
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

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