Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream

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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 that, 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. Music scholar George Grove described it as 'the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music.' 

Composer Felix Mendelssohn
Conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Performers London Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi Choir
Actors Alexander Knox, Ceri-lyn Cissone, Frankie Wakefield

Winner: Recordings of the Year 2017 - Presto Classical 

Winner: Choc de L'année 2017 - Classica 

Winner: Musique symphonique, Diapason de L'année 2017, Diapason

100 Best Albums of 2017 - The Times

1. Overture
2. Incidental music: Narration - "Ay me! For aught that I could ever read"
3. No.1 Scherzo
4. No. 2 L'istesso tempo
5. No 2a. Allegro vivace
6. No 3. Lied mit Chor
7. No 4. Andante
8. No 5. Allegro appassionato
9. No 7. Nocturne (Con moto tranquillo)
10. No 8. Andante
11. No 9. Hochzeitmarsch ("Wedding March") & No. 12 Allegro vivace come primo
12. Finale. (Allegro di molto)

Release Date 3 February 2017

LSO0795 | 822231179528

Producer Nicholas Parker

Engineers Neil Hutchinson and Jonathan Stokes for Classic Sound Ltd

Recorded 16 February 2016, Barbican, London

DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Booklet in English, French & German

Texts in English. Sung and spoken in English

FLAC - 24bit 192kHz and 24bit 96kHz - Compatible with Windows and Android devices
MP3 - 320kbps - Universal compatibility
SACD - Compatible with all CD players

Available on streaming services

Reviews

“

***** 'The interplay between spoken and instrumental sections is smoothly engineered and the young actors keep things moving. But it's Mendelssohn's lyricism that wins overall: how do you sum up nearly an hour's music with just a slow, high, softly descending E major scale? Genius.'

- BBC Music Magazine, Orchestral Choice
“

'There's a real lightness of touch in the Overture, and I was delighted with the way that Gardiner manages to make familiar music sound fresh. He doesn't shy away from some of Mendelssohn's more imaginative touches of orchestration, and the moment where Mendelssohn employs huge leaps in the violins and clarinets to represent the braying of Bottom is pleasingly done.’

- Presto Classical, Disc of the Week
“

‘The angelic clamours of the Monteverdi Choir almost had us believing in fairies.’

- Diapason's Symphonic Recording of the Year