Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21 | Riccardo Chailly HD

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream in E major, op. 21, played by the Gewandhausorchester under the baton of Riccardo Chailly at the Gewandhaus Leipzig in 2005. This was Chailly’s inaugural concert as Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and he selected an atmospheric program of compositions by Mendelssohn Bartholdy for the occasion. It began with the concert overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which to this day is considered one of Mendelssohn’s greatest masterpieces. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 - 1847) wrote the concert overture in the summer of 1826 – when he was just 17 years old. It’s no surprise that the young Mendelssohn based his work on Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream since at the time, the first three volumes of Shakespeare’s works had just been published in German. They had been procured by August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, and were met with great enthusiasm among the wealthy Berlin milieu of Mendelssohn’s childhood. However, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21 cannot be described as program music. The young composer himself writes about his concert overture that it represents only a memory of the jolly cast of characters from Shakespeare’s comedy. It’s interesting to note that Felix Mendelssohn is already using a kind of leitmotiv technique in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, similar to that used in Richard Wagner’s musical dramas to create structure. Mendelssohn’s love of A Midsummer Night’s Dream remained unbroken as he grew older. In response to a staging of the Shakespeare work at the Berliner Hoftheater, he composed the theater music A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 61 (1842), which also contains the famous Wedding March. Enjoy the dreamy, fairytale-like music of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s concert overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21, in its floaty and light interpretation by Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig! © EuroArts Music International Watch more concerts in your personal concert hall: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_SdnzPd3eBV5A14dyRWy1KSkwcG8LEey Subscribe to DW Classical Music: https://www.youtube.com/dwclassicalmusic #MendelssohnBartholdy #midsummernightsdream #RiccardoChailly