Customer Reviews

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream ~ Previn

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Andre Previn was at his freshest and most involved in 1976 when he made his acclaimed recording of Mendelssohn's complete Midsummer Night's Dream music, all 57 min. worth. It's become fashionable to include some spoken dialogue (as Abbado does on his Sony recording with the Berlin Phil.) so that we can capture the melding of Mendelssohn with Shakespeare. Previn's version is dialogue free, but he is unusually alert and sparkling here.

One secret is taking slower than normal tempos, which gives the orchestra space to phrase with more imagination. You really do participate in a wordless drama of romance and magic, and thanks to EMI's sterling engineering, which highlights all the delicious detials of the LSO's playing, thrice-familiar music sounds new and engaging. That's the secret--Previn doesn't tkae a single bar for granted, so listeners old and new can immrese themselves in Mendelsoohn's immortal fairy whimsy. Even the scaling back to a smaller orchestral sound--far removed from the symphonic breadth of, say, Klemperer--makes us feel that we have traveled to a world of delicate enchantment. Highly recommended.

This EMI recording came out in the late 1970s, and quite simply, no one else has come close to capturing the sheer beauty and quicksilver lightness of Mendelssohn's scoring. Andre Previn and his London forces have done a masterful job. One of those discs that should never be allowed to go out of print.

Have you had the opportunity to hear Mendelssohn's music performed with the Shakespeare play? We went to a performance where veteran Shakespearean actors, husband and wife John Bell and Anna Volska, acted every single part in the play, while the Sydney Opera and Ballet Orchestra performed the music. [It took about 2 minutes to adjust to a cast of 2!]

Some people have called it "Great Music for a Silly Play," but I think both play and music are superb. By the way, it is not true that Mendelssohn wrote the music at the age of 17: he did write the overture then (which is an amazing feat), but the rest was written in his maturity.

This recording does *not* feature the play, too, but it is one of my favourites. It is one of the earliest CDs we bought, and it is terrific that it is still available.

The music is superb, and the performances of the orchestra, soloists and children's choir are top notch.

This is one of the best pieces of Nineteenth Century Music. You may find that you play it more frequently than most CDs in your collection.

Highly recommended.

Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream is a masterpiece -- perhaps his greatest composition. Although the overture was written when Mendelssohn was 17 and the rest of the incidental music was written during his early 30s, the music blends together seamlessly and conveys a uniquely magical atmosphere. Unfortunately, few conductor's fully capture this fairy-like atmosphere, but Andre Previn does. The only conductor who compared with Previn in this music was the late Peter Maag, but Maag recorded only excerpts of this music, whereas Previn presents the complete score. Other pluses of this recording are the excellent singing (in English), both by the sopranos and by the children's choir. This is an outstanding CD is every respect and no lover of classical music should miss it.

Like the reviewer before me mentioned, this is the best version of Midsummer Night's Dream out there. EMI labels are in fact high quality and I highly recommend them to music fans. Shakespeare has had a profound influence and inspiration in classical music. Mendelsshon was only 17 when he composed this "incidental music " meant to be played during the dialogue and action of the actual play itself. This piece is overflowing with Mendelsshon's genius. The Overture is a sunny orchestral piece, a fine example on how Mozart's relatively cheerful music had a deep influence on Mendelsshon. The same goes for the allegro-tempoed pieces heard throught much of the action in the play. In the Wedding March, Mendelsshon left his mark to the world. It is one of the most famous bits of music as it is used in weddings world-wide. The use of chorus is masterful and nearly operatic. "Come not near our fairie queen " sing the fairies in one of such chorus and the Final Chorus, as the play draws to an end is magnificent to hear. There is much Romanticism utilized, Mendelsshon being an noted Romantic composer and we hear this through the Nocturne and the slower movements. This is a must have for classical afficionados. I truly enjoyed it and rate it five stars!

This performance is as immortal as Wm. Shakespeare's words. It is virtually impossible for me to listen to many of these tracks without smiling,

What a CD can be?This recording tells you how excellent a work can be interpreted.Previn is one of my favorite conductor.He gave us the best present which we dared not dream of.
And the most amazing is the childrens' chorus.The girls' singing associated with the words "wind" and "wing".Best enjoyment.
RECOMMENDED!!!!

Finally, a piece of orchestral music that compliments William Shakespeare's romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, about scheming fairies and their manipulation of four exiled lovers. The cover alone is enough to attract the most appreciative aesthete, an English painting of the scene in which Titania, Oberon and their fairies come across a sleeping actor. Felix Mendelssohn was only 17 when he composed the "incidental" music to the Shakespearean comic play. It was his first mature work, and it was used by a fine orchestra during a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in London. The genius of Mendelssohn at age is very obvious. He has the abilities and talents of Mozart, himself a child prodigy, and colorizes the individual instruments, actively engages the audience with varied musical beauty. This recording is the most complete, and it is undoubtedly the best. Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra masters the bright, romantic, elegant, witty score; a score that itself resembles the playful dialogue of the comedy.

The Overture introduces the themes of the four lovers, the fairies, the actors and the happy finale. The four chords struck on flute represents the four lovers, the fickle, bored lovers who have run away from home on exile for their forbidden love and through fairy pranks, fall in love with the wrong partners. The fairies music is heard in the rapid trills of the strings in the Overture, which sound staccato, dainty, and are tinged with magic mischief. The bombastic passages for trumpet and full orchestra lead to the "hee-haw" sound of the bassoon which represents the actor who is turned into a donkey by the fairy's prank. The scherzo again recalls the fairies in the woods, the same kind of fast-paced, staccato string music that is filled with mischief. Mendelssohn was keenly describing magic through music. The passage written for voices, the song taken from the incantation that the fairies in Titania's service chant, "Ye Spotted Snakes With Double Tongue" is beautifully made, using the operatic style. A mezzo soprano and lyric soprano erupt in a duet and they are accompanied by a chorus of children's voices.

The Nocturne is an effective musical portrait of the landscape, in this case, the forest in the moonlight. The fairies live in a world of dark beauty, serenity, elusive isolation. The trumpet is the perfect instrument best able to describe the majestic loneliness and peace in the forest, while the orchestra, in hushed strings, evoke the romance that was so much a part of this play. The most famous part of this music is the Wedding March. Who has not heard the Wedding March ? It is played ad nauseum in wedding ceremonies, has been used in the media of television, film and radio. It is not to be confused with Wagner's Wedding March from his opera, Lohengrin. Mendelssohn's Wedding March is a longer work, without chorus, opening with the trumpet fanfare that resounds with such majesty, followed by the equally bombastic march that the orchestra beats with romantic grandeur. This march is repeated again towards the end of the work. A direct contrast to the happy March is the Bergomask. It is a sad piece, funereal, haunting and cynical. The finale again makes use of voices, the children sing the lines at the end of the play, "Through the house" in which the fairies have made up for their mischief and the lovers are again with their rightful partners. The lyric soprano again sings with impressive charm, i.e. "Hand in hand with fairy grace, will we sing and bless this place".

This is a must have for fans of Mendelssohn, for the afficionados of classical music, for Shakespeare fans who wish to hear specialized music written about his plays. For me, and perhaps for all music and vocal teachers, this is an enchanting introduction to classical music, but most specifically, Romantic Era (19th century) music. Mendelssohn had been born of Jewish parents but he converted to Christianity and lived most of his life in England. Mendelssohn was highly esteemed by Victorians of his time, and Queen Victoria herself was drawn to his music. It was said he had a lighter, Christian, less complex style when Romantic music was evolving to darker, fatalistic themes, with the emergence of the so called "music of the future" by composers that may have appeared like rock stars of our time- namely Richard Wagner and Franz Lizst. To Christians who could not endure the booming new style, Mendelssohn offered sentimentality and comfort.

I bought this for my son because he was doing a term project on shakespear's A midsummer nights dream. He took it to school and the year 6 students all enjoyed listening to the music while they worked