Mendelssohn - Midsummer Night's Dream - Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra

Mendelssohn - Midsummer Night's Dream - Klemperer,
Philharmonia Orchestra
Symphonic | Eac, flac, cue | log, cover | 1 CD, 239 MB
released 1981 | EMI | RapidShare

These 1960 performances are classics among the classics, and there is little need to emphasize their qualities. Otto Klemperer conducts the incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream with an audible keenness for this magic music. If the tempos are not the liveliest on disc, the Maestro's natural aptitude for orchestral balance certainly allows the listener to taste every bit of Mendelssohn's fairy orchestration, as in the vivid Scherzo or the delicate anxiety of the Intermezzo. Heather Harper and Janet Baker are irresistible in the sung episodes, and so is the Philharmonia Chorus. The Philharmonia Orchestra provides perfect ensemble playing, unforgettable velvet tone and explosive energy. Thanks to a careful remastering, these eternal recording are given a new life. A CD to treasure. [12/9/1999]--Luca Sabbatini

Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 61, was completed 16 years after he wrote the Overture, Op. 21. The consistency of style and musical unity between them belie the disparate dates of composition. The overture was by an incredibly musically gifted youth of 17, and the incidental music was by the music director of Prussia's King Friedrich Wilhelm IV's Academy of the Arts and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

A Midsummer Night's Dream had always been a favorite of Felix and his sister, Fanny. The commission for the remaining music came from the King, for a Potsdam production of the play, one of several commissions for theatrical music Mendelssohn received while in this post. The producer of the play was Ludwig Tieck, one of the translators of the definitive German version of the play, the same version that the Mendelssohns had enjoyed and absorbed thoroughly as their own.

CD Content

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night's Dream Op.61 Incidental Music