On two occasions,
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
composed music for
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's play ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
'' (in German ''Ein Sommernachtstraum''). First in 1826, near the start of his career, he wrote a
concert overture (
Op. 21). Later, in 1842, five years before his death, he wrote
incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...
(Op. 61) for a production of the play, into which he incorporated the existing overture. The incidental music includes the famous "
Wedding March".
Overture
The overture in
E major
E major is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps. Its relative minor is C-sharp minor and its parallel minor is E minor. Its enharmonic equivalent, F-flat maj ...
, Op. 21, was written by Mendelssohn at 17 years and 6 months old (it was finished on 6 August 1826).
['' Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 5th ed., 1954 ] The near-contemporary music scholar
George Grove
Sir George Grove (13 August 182028 May 1900) was an English engineer and writer on music, known as the founding editor of ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''.
Grove was trained as a civil engineer, and successful in that profession ...
called it "the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music". It was written as a concert overture, not associated with any performance of the play. The overture was written after Mendelssohn had read a German translation of the play in 1826. The translation was by
August Wilhelm Schlegel, with help from
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romanticism, Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Early life
Tieck w ...
. There was a family connection as well: Schlegel's brother
Friedrich married Felix Mendelssohn's
Aunt Dorothea.
While a
romantic piece in atmosphere, the overture incorporates many
classical elements, being cast in
sonata form
The sonata form (also sonata-allegro form or first movement form) is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of t ...
and shaped by regular phrasings and harmonic transitions. The piece is also noted for its striking instrumental effects, such as the emulation of scampering 'fairy feet' at the beginning and the braying of
Bottom as an ass (effects which were influenced by the aesthetic ideas and suggestions of Mendelssohn's friend at the time,
Adolf Bernhard Marx).
Heinrich Eduard Jacob, in his biography of the composer, surmised that Mendelssohn had scribbled the opening chords after hearing an evening breeze rustle the leaves in the garden of the family's home.
[ Also, Mendelssohn liberally used a theme borrowed from the Act II Finale of ]Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and Music criticism, critic in the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Best known for List of operas by Carl Maria von Weber, h ...
’s opera Oberon
Oberon () is a king of the fairy, fairies in Middle Ages, medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania ...
. Given that Mendelssohn’s overture has the same key and largely the same orchestration as that section of the opera, it was likely meant to be a tribute to the recently deceased Weber.
The overture begins with four chords in the winds. Following the first theme in the parallel minor ( E minor) representing the dancing fairies, a transition (the royal music of the court of Athens) leads to a second theme, that of the lovers. This is followed by the braying of Bottom with the "hee-hawing" being evoked by the strings. A final group of themes, reminiscent of craftsmen and hunting calls, brings the exposition to a close. The fairies dominate most of the development section, while the lover's theme is played in a minor key. The recapitulation begins with the same opening four chords in the winds, followed by the fairies theme and the other section in the second theme, including Bottom's braying. The fairies return, and ultimately have the final word in the coda, just as in Shakespeare's play. The overture ends once again with the same opening four chords by the winds.
The overture was premiered in Stettin (then in Prussia
Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
; now Szczecin
Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Poland-Germany border, German border, it is a major port, seaport, the la ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
) on 20 February 1827, at a concert conducted by Carl Loewe. Mendelssohn had turned 18 just over two weeks earlier. He had to travel 80 miles through a raging snowstorm to get to the concert, which was his first public appearance. Loewe and Mendelssohn also appeared as soloists in Mendelssohn's Concerto in A-flat major for two pianos and orchestra, and Mendelssohn alone was the soloist for Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and Music criticism, critic in the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Best known for List of operas by Carl Maria von Weber, h ...
's '' Konzertstück in F minor''. After the intermission, he joined the first violins for a performance of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
's Ninth Symphony.
The first British performance of the overture was conducted by Mendelssohn himself, on 24 June 1829, at the Argyll Rooms in London, at a concert in benefit of the victims of the floods in Silesia
Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
, and played by an orchestra that had been assembled by Mendelssohn's friend Sir George Smart.[ At the same concert, Mendelssohn was the soloist in the English premiere of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto. After the concert, Thomas Attwood was given the score for the Overture for safe-keeping, but he left it in a cab and it was never recovered. Mendelssohn rewrote it from memory.
]
Incidental music
Mendelssohn wrote the incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...
, Op. 61, for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' in 1842, 16 years after he wrote the overture. It was written to a commission from King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV (; 15 October 1795 – 2 January 1861), the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, was King of Prussia from 7 June 1840 until his death on 2 January 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the th ...
. Mendelssohn was by then the music director of the King's Academy of the Arts and of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. A successful presentation of Sophocles
Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...
' '' Antigone'' on 28 October 1841 at the New Palace in Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
, with music by Mendelssohn (Op. 55) led to the King asking him for more such music, to plays he especially enjoyed. ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' was produced on 14 October 1843, also at Potsdam. The producer was Ludwig Tieck. This was followed by incidental music for Sophocles' '' Oedipus at Colonus'' (Potsdam, 1 November 1845; published posthumously as Op. 93) and Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tr ...
's '' Athalie'' (Berlin, 1 December 1845; Op. 74).[
The ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' overture, Op. 21, originally written as an independent piece 16 years earlier, was incorporated into the Op. 61 incidental music as its overture, and the first of its 14 numbers. There are also vocal sections and other purely instrumental movements, including the Scherzo, Nocturne and " Wedding March". The vocal numbers include the song "Ye spotted snakes" and the melodramas "Over hill, over dale", "The Spells", "What hempen homespuns", and "The Removal of the Spells". The melodramas served to enhance Shakespeare's text.
Act 1 was played without music. The Scherzo, with its sprightly scoring, dominated by chattering winds and dancing strings, acts as an intermezzo between acts 1 and 2. The Scherzo leads directly into the first melodrama, a passage of text spoken over music. ]Oberon
Oberon () is a king of the fairy, fairies in Middle Ages, medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania ...
's arrival is accompanied by a fairy march, scored with triangle and cymbals.
The vocal piece "Ye spotted snakes" ("Bunte Schlangen, zweigezüngt") opens act 2's second scene. The second intermezzo comes at the end of the second act. Act 3 includes a quaint march for the entrance of the Mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement
* Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations o ...
s. We soon hear music quoted from the overture to accompany the action. The Nocturne includes a solo horn doubled by bassoons, and accompanies the sleeping lovers between acts 3 and 4. There is only one melodrama in act 4. This closes with a reprise of the Nocturne to accompany the mortal lovers' sleep.
The intermezzo between acts 4 and 5 is the famous "Wedding March", probably the most popular single piece of music composed by Mendelssohn, and one of the most ubiquitous pieces of music ever written.
Act 5 contains more music than any other, to accompany the wedding feast. There is a brief fanfare for trumpets and timpani, a parody of a funeral march, and a Bergamask dance. The dance uses Bottom's braying from the overture as its main thematic material.
The play has three brief epilogues. The first is introduced with a reprise of the theme of the "Wedding March" and the fairy music of the overture. After Puck's speech, the final musical number is heard – "Through this house give glimmering light" ("Bei des Feuers mattem Flimmern"), scored for solo soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...
and women's chorus. Puck's famous valedictory speech "If we shadows have offended" is accompanied, as day breaks, by the four chords first heard at the very beginning of the overture, bringing the work full circle and to a fitting close.
The music was dedicated to a gifted amateur musician friend of Mendelssohn's, Dr Heinrich Conrad Schleinitz.
Movements
In published scores the overture and finale are usually not numbered.
*Overture
:
*Finale (with choir)
Suite and excerpts
The purely instrumental movements (Overture, Scherzo, Intermezzo, Nocturne, "Wedding March", and Bergamask) are often played as a unified suite or as independent pieces, at concert performance or on recording, although this approach never had Mendelssohn's imprimatur. Like many others, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded selections for RCA Victor; Ormandy broke with tradition by using the German translation of Shakespeare's text. In the 1970s Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos recorded a Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...
LP of the complete incidental music with the New Philharmonia Orchestra and soloists Hanneke van Bork and Alfreda Hodgson; it later was issued on CD. In October 1992, Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra recorded another album of the full score for Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
; they were joined by soloists Frederica von Stade and Kathleen Battle as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Actress Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatility, having appeared in films and television, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage ...
was heard reciting those excerpts from the play that were acted against the music. In 1996, Claudio Abbado recorded an album for Sony Masterworks of extended excerpts with Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh ( ; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. List of award ...
acting several roles from the play, performed live.
Scoring
The overture is scored for two flute
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
s, two oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites.
The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...
s, two clarinet
The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell.
Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
s, two bassoon
The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...
s, two horns, two trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...
s, ophicleide, timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
and strings. The ophicleide part was originally written for English bass horn ("corno inglese di basso"), which was also used at the first performance and the London premiere in 1829; the composer subsequently replaced this instrument with the ophicleide in the first published edition, though Hogwood points out that it is unclear whether this was "an artistic or executive decision".
The incidental music adds a third trumpet, three trombone
The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...
s, triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
, cymbal
A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...
s, soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...
, mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...
and women's chorus to this scoring.
Arrangements
In 1844 Mendelssohn arranged three movements for piano solo (Scherzo, Nocturne, Wedding March), which received their first recording by Roberto Prosseda in 2005. Slightly better known is the composer's own arrangement, also made in 1844, of five movements for piano duet (Overture, Scherzo, Intermezzo, Nocturne, Wedding March).
Other arrangements for piano include: Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
's transcription of the Wedding March and Dance of the Elves, S410; Sigismond Thalberg's arrangement of the Scherzo; Moritz Moszkowski's arrangement of the Nocturne; and Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...
's arrangement of the Scherzo.
There is a multitude of other arrangements for piano and for other instruments.
Uses
Sections of the score were used in Woody Allen
Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...
's 1982 film '' A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy''.
Portions of the score were used extensively in the film '' The Scarlet Empress'' (1934), directed by Josef von Sternberg, starring Marlene Dietrich as Catherine the Great
Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...
, Empress of Russia.
Director Max Reinhardt asked Erich Wolfgang Korngold to re-orchestrate Mendelssohn's ''Midsummer Night's Dream'' music for his 1935 film, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
''. Korngold added other works by Mendelssohn to the mix. Critic Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
singles the music out for praise, as contemporary critics did.
The Scherzo is briefly used in the opening scene of the 2002 thriller ''Red Dragon''.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Midsummer Night's Dream, A
Incidental music by Felix Mendelssohn
Concert overtures
1826 compositions
1842 compositions
Music based on A Midsummer Night's Dream
Orchestral suites
Compositions in E major
Music dedicated to family or friends
Frederick William IV of Prussia
Overtures by Felix Mendelssohn