Download Overture to A Midsummer Night`s Dream, Op. 21

FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21
BORN: February 3, 1809, in Hamburg
DIED: November 4, 1847, in Leipzig
WORK COMPOSED: 1826
WORLD PREMIERE: February 20, 1827, in the German (now Polish) city of Stettin. Carl Loewe, an accomplished
composer of songs and other works, conducted.
Felix Mendelssohn was only 17 when he conceived the idea of a concert overture to Shakespeare’s comedy A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. In July 1826, he wrote to his sister, who was traveling: “I’ve gotten into the habit of
composing in our garden. ... Today or tomorrow I shall go there to dream A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” This picture
of Mendelssohn composing dreamily in the garden of his family’s house suggests composition of this work as a fairly
effortless matter, but such was not the case. Mendelssohn had completed a substantial portion of the score when
he became dissatisfied and began over again. We can be thankful that he lavished such care on his overture. It is
one the composer’s most appealing works and surely the most accomplished music ever produced by an
adolescent, Mozart and Strauss not excepted.
Mendelssohn’s composition follows the usual form of a concert overture but introduces unmistakable pictorial
elements. The composer reduces the customary slow introduction of overture form to four magical chords, which
seem to cast a spell and transport us to that enchanted forest where Oberon and Titania rule. Each of the three
themes that follow corresponds loosely to one of the three types of characters in the play.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR: The light and rapid figures that flow out of the opening harmonies conjure represent
Shakespeare’s fairies rushing through the forest, while the more warmly romantic second melody suggests the
mortal lovers lost in the wood. Finally, the humorous closing theme represents the rustic tradesmen; we even hear
the braying of the hapless Bottom after he has been given the head of a donkey. This subject concludes with the
horn calls of Duke Theseus’ hunting party. Mendelssohn develops these ideas with keen imagination and a gossamer
touch, and the overture closes with a reprise of the magic chords of the opening measures.
© 2016 Paul Schiavo