Freiburger Barockorchester / Pablo Heras-Casado

As if the elves were playing

Mythical creatures, nocturnal apparitions, magical romanticism – William Shakespeare certainly didn’t lack imagination. Quite the contrary: his comedy »A Midsummer Night’s Dream« is full of curious figures and magical places that also captured the imagination of a 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn – so much so that he immediately reached for pen and paper, and set the wonderfully exuberant poetry to music in the form of a concert overture. Mendelssohn captures the charm of the literary model so perfectly in this work that it remains one of his most popular to this day. Between the fairy dance and the famous wedding march, you can even hear the »I-oh« of an enchanted donkey from the orchestra. Mendelssohn later expanded the overture into incidental music for the play, capturing the atmosphere of Shakespeare’s comedy in a unique way. »There is a ribbing and joking in the instruments as if the elves themselves were playing«, commented Robert Schumann.