Mendelssohn Midsummer Nights Dream Sheet Music, Program Notes and Recordings

Shakespeare's Enchanted Forest in Sound

It is a charming and well-documented story that in the summer of 1826, a seventeen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn was sitting in the sprawling garden of his family’s Berlin home, utterly captivated by a new German translation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The magical atmosphere of the play, with its intersecting worlds of fairies, nobles, lovers, and comical tradesmen, fired his imagination. He later told a friend that he was particularly inspired by the play’s closing lines, "at the silent hour of midnight," and the image of the fairies’ dance. From this youthful inspiration came the Overture, Op. 21, a work of such perfection, originality, and maturity that it stands as perhaps the most astonishing achievement by any teenage composer. Sixteen years later, when asked to expand this singular masterpiece into a full evening of music, Mendelssohn somehow managed to recapture that same youthful magic, creating a unified work that is as immortal as the play it illuminates.

The Miracle of Youthful Genius

The Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not simply a prelude; it is a complete dramatic poem that contains every essential element of Shakespeare’s play. It opens with four simple, sustained woodwind chords that act as a magical incantation, instantly transporting the listener to an enchanted realm. This is followed by the famous "fairy music," a scurrying, gossamer theme in the divided violins, played staccato and pianissimo. This was a revolutionary sound in 1826 and perfectly captures the fleet-footed motion of the elves. Soon, other themes emerge: a broad, lyrical melody for the human lovers, a stately fanfare for Duke Theseus’s court, and a rustic, bumbling tune for the "rude mechanicals," which comically descends into the "hee-haw" of Bottom transformed into a donkey. Mendelssohn masterfully weaves these disparate elements into a perfectly balanced sonata form, a feat of structural and imaginative genius that would be remarkable for a seasoned master, let alone a boy of seventeen.

A Royal Commission and a Triumphant Return

For sixteen years, the Overture stood alone as a beloved concert piece. Then, in 1842, Mendelssohn’s new patron, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, commissioned him to compose a full score of incidental music for a lavish stage production of the play. Mendelssohn now faced the daunting task of returning to the musical world he had created as a teenager. How could he, a mature composer of 34, write new music that would not sound out of place next to the incandescent perfection of the Overture? He solved the problem with breathtaking skill, creating thirteen new numbers that are stylistically seamless with the original. He achieved this by quoting themes from the Overture in the new sections and, more importantly, by fully re-immersing himself in the unique sound world he had invented—a world of shimmering strings, chattering woodwinds, and ethereal harmonies.

The Scherzo: A Whir of Fairy Wings

The first of the new pieces, the Scherzo, serves as an entr'acte after the first act and is a marvel of orchestral lightness and velocity. If the Overture’s fairy music depicted the elves dancing, the Scherzo depicts them in flight. Dominated by bubbling, rapid-fire passages in the woodwinds, particularly an iconic solo for the flute, the music almost never touches the ground. It is a moto perpetuo of delicate, mischievous energy, perfectly embodying the character of Puck as he darts through the forest on his errands. The string writing is equally brilliant, requiring the players to produce a sound that is both feather-light and rhythmically precise. It is a tour de force of orchestration and a testament to Mendelssohn’s ability to create a sense of pure, unadulterated magic.

The Nocturne: A Forest Asleep

In stark contrast to the Scherzo's frantic energy is the famous Nocturne, which connects Acts III and IV. The four lost and confused lovers have fallen asleep in the woods under Puck's spell, and Mendelssohn provides a musical blanket of serene, moonlit tranquility. The piece is dominated by one of the most beautiful and iconic solos ever written for the French horn, a long, lyrical melody that unfolds with sublime peacefulness over a gentle accompaniment of strings and woodwinds. The music breathes an air of deep contentment and reconciliation, a moment of profound peace before the comic resolutions of the final act. It is a perfect example of German Romanticism at its most poetic and heartfelt, a sound that would later be emulated by composers like Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

The Wedding March: An Icon of Celebration

Few pieces of classical music have so thoroughly permeated popular culture as the "Wedding March." Heard during the transition to Act V, it is not the play's finale but a grand processional for the triple wedding of the Athenian nobles. Its familiarity can sometimes mask its brilliance. The music begins with a bold trumpet fanfare before launching into its joyous, striding main theme. It is a piece of immense confidence and splendor, full of pomp and ceremony, yet it never loses its sense of lyrical grace, especially in the sweeping string melody of the central section. Its use as a wedding recessional became standard after it was chosen by Victoria, the Princess Royal, for her marriage in 1858, forever linking Mendelssohn's theatrical music to real-world celebration.

The Music of Mortals: Clowns and Funerals

Mendelssohn also masterfully captures the comical antics of Bottom and his fellow tradesmen. Their climactic performance of the "most lamentable comedy" of Pyramus and Thisbe is accompanied by two wonderfully witty pieces. First is a "Bergomask," a rustic peasant dance here rendered as deliberately clumsy and flat-footed, a perfect musical depiction of the amateur actors' enthusiastic lack of grace. This is followed by a brief "Funeral March" for the "deaths" of the play's tragic heroes. It is a parody of a real funeral march, with ponderous, plodding rhythms and a comically simple-minded tune, demonstrating Mendelssohn's keen sense of humor and his ability to shift musical character in an instant.

A Cohesive Masterpiece

The true genius of Mendelssohn's complete score lies in its incredible unity. From the magical opening chords of the Overture to the final, ethereal chorus where the fairies bless the house of the newlyweds, the music creates a single, enchanting tapestry. By cleverly reprising the Overture's main themes at key moments in the later incidental music, Mendelssohn binds the entire structure together. The work he began as a prodigious boy was brought to its glorious conclusion by the mature master, yet it speaks with one voice. More than any other musical score, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a perfect and complete translation of Shakespearean magic into the language of sound, a timeless masterpiece that continues to captivate the imagination of audiences everywhere.