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Mendelssohn: Overture & Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream

Iván Fischer

Classical - Released June 22, 2018 | Channel Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
No doubt fairies exist. Mendelssohn spoke their language well. When he considered composing music to Shakespeare’s play, he decided to focus on the scenes with fairies.Humans like this music. It entertains them. They are allowed to listen to this cd, too. However, we made this recording for fairies. They listen differently. This recording is full of hidden messages, which they will understand.Fairies are around us all the time. They occasionally interfere but sometimes they take a long time waiting for the right moment. If you keep your voice down and open your eyes, you will notice them. They listen to this music with more attention.- Iván Fischer
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Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream

London Symphony Orchestra

Classical - Released February 3, 2017 | LSO Live

Hi-Res Booklet
Continuing his award-winning Mendelssohn cycle, John Eliot Gardiner leads the London Symphony Orchestra, his Monteverdi Choir and three aspiring actors from the Guildhall School in a landmark performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was performed and recorded live as part of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Gardiner produces a personal version of the work featuring some cuts to the original melodrama movements (of course, nothing gets cut in the main movements, or those purely musical with no spoken text), 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 composed his concert overture based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1827 at the young age of 17. The overture was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece and quickly became a popular favourite throughout Europe. Years later, namely in 1843, he was asked by the King of Prussia to provide a score as the incidental music to an entire production. It’s made of fourteen short numbers based on themes and moods from the original overture, with a broadly romantic sound although classical in style and structure. According to the Evening Standard'Gardiner’s Mendelssohn with the LSO packs a surprisingly hefty punch', while Classic FM reports thats 'as you might expect, Gardiner brings his love of authentic performance into his approach – the LSO strings sound bright and breezy as they evoke Mendelssohn's Scotland.' © SM/Qobuz
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Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos 1-5, Overtures, A Midsummer Night's Dream

John Eliot Gardiner

Symphonies - Released September 21, 2018 | LSO Live

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Felix Mendelssohn : A Midsummer Night's Dream - Piano Concertos 1 & 2

Riccardo Chailly

Classical - Released January 1, 2014 | Universal Music Italia srL.

Distinctions 5 de Diapason
One might think that Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream incidental music was a work about which all that could be said has been said, but this entirely fresh recording by the venerable Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig comes up with some fresh takes. First is the lithe, dry reading of the Midsummer Night's Dream music itself, the most ethereal product of Mendelssohn's teenage years. Some may miss the accretions of Victorian sweetness in conductor Riccardo Chailly's reading of the work, but even those listeners will have to marvel at the crisp sound Chailly gets out of the Leipzigers, and at the sheer effort of will involved in making the chestnut Wedding March (track 6) sound as though the conductor and musicians were encountering it for the first time. On top of this is a genuine world premiere of an early version of the Ruy Blas overture, as it was first performed in 1839 at the Gewandhaus itself, and strong performance of the two piano concertos by Israeli Arab sensation Saleem Ashkar. Nobody would put the concertos at the top of a list of Mendelssohn's compositions, but Ashkar's readings show that he was listening to what was happening around him rather than simply showing off his considerable chops. The result is a pair of tight, quick performances, as much Chailly as Ashkar, that emphasize Mendelssohn's contrapuntal thinking. A well-above-average Mendelssohn release.© TiVo
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Mendelssohn: Incidental Music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

The Philharmonia Orchestra

Classical - Released March 25, 2009 | Past Classics

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Tchaikovsky: Hamlet (Complete Incidental Music), Romeo and Juliet

Tatiana Monogarova

Classical - Released October 28, 2008 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
Tchaikovsky's rarely recorded overture and incidental music for Hamlet, and his even more rarely recorded original version of the Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet, are hardly the crown jewels of his output. The former has some fine music in it -- the blustery overture and the fetching Allegro simplice Entr'acte in particular -- but most of it, while appropriate as incidental music, can hardly stand repeated listenings. The latter likewise has fine moments, but it is less formally cogent and dramatically compelling than its later incarnation. That said, these are truly first-rate performances. Vladimir Jurowski had previously demonstrated his understanding of Tchaikovsky's music in his brilliantly colorful and highly balletic recording of the composer's under-valued Third Suite for Orchestra, and his direction here is no less sympathetic. As much as the Hamlet music and Romeo and Juliet overture can hold together, they hold together here in Jurowski's tight, taut performances. The Russian National Orchestra responds to Jurowski's direction with passion and panache, and that enthusiasm goes a long way toward overcoming the music's inherent weaknesses. Captured in immediate super audio, multi-channel digital sound, this disc may initially appeal only to Tchaikovsky's most dedicated fans, but they will most likely be very happy to hear it. © TiVo
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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 / Mendelssohn: Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream

Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski

Classical - Released May 27, 2011 | Signum Records

Hi-Res Booklet
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Imagination

Raphaela Gromes

Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Sony Classical - Sony Music

Hi-Res Booklet
Raphaela Gromes has received acclaim for her highly virtuoso, brilliant and passionately expressive cello playing. What also distinguishes this exceptional musician is her enjoyment of the musical treasure hunt. For this "Imagination", Raphaela chose imaginative music, music based on stories, on fairy tales. The wide selection includes a waltz from Tchaikovsky's ballet music Sleeping Beauty, a fairy tale narration by Robert Schumann, the Evening Prayer from Humperdinck's popular fairy tale opera Hansel and Gretel, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee and other dreamy, magical and highly poetic pieces by Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). "Imagination" also presents less-known works by David Popper, Paul Juon, and rarities like Märchenstunde by the composer Margarete Schweikert, and Forgotten Fairy Tales by the New Yorker Edward McDowell. Most of the pieces are newly arranged by Raphaela's duo-partner Julian Riem for violoncello and piano, but also for piano trio and for complementary harp and saxophone quartet. Raphaela Gromes recorded the arrangements with Julian Riem and musician friends such as Daniels Dodds (violin), Arcis Saxophone Quartet and Anaïs Gaudemard (harp). Raphaela Gromes came up with the idea for this album during a hike in the spring of 2020 - when she came across a particularly enchanted place in a forest at dusk. "The sky was reflected in the pond, and the backlighting caused a magic glow to emerge around the reeds and flowers, as if elves and fairies were floating in the light above the water", Gromes says: "The Dance of the Elves by David Popper came into my mind. I was immediately inspired and full of energy, and when I got home, I immediately went in search of more music that would take me into the world of magic and fantasy". The album ends with The Shire from Lord of the Rings and Leia's theme from Star Wars are both recorded in a new version for cello and piano. © Sony Classical
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Carmen Ballet, Carnaval Overture, Incidental Music To "Hamlet"

Arthur Fiedler

Classical - Released January 1, 1970 | High Performance

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Beauteous Softness

Tim Mead

Classical - Released March 24, 2023 | PentaTone

Booklet
There are certainly more powerful countertenors on the scene than Tim Mead, yet this release landed on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2023. The appeal is not hard to see: countertenors who seek to emulate the power of the operatic castrati often fail to serve smaller-scale 17th century English music well, but Mead offers a different approach, marked by restraint and dramatic persuasiveness. The songs of Henry Purcell contain some of his best music, but they are comparatively little recorded. Here Mead, with a variety of freestanding songs and theatrical music of various kinds, is lyrical and poetic. His diction is impeccable, and what one hears in his rendering of the texts is not conventional pastoral imagery but a singer who means what he sings. Sample O let me weep, from The Fairy Queen, or one of the songs about sleep, where Mead's delivery is quite affecting. The program is not restricted to Purcell, and another draw here is the music by other Restoration-era composers like Pelham Humfrey, who is even less well-exposed than Purcell. The historical instrument group La Nuova Musica under David Bates gets exactly the low-key note needed to bring out Mead at his best, and PentaTone's church sound, if not atmospherically appropriate, is at least clear. This is a Baroque countertenor release where the artist meets repertory especially successfully.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Christmastide

Jessye Norman

Classical - Released January 1, 1987 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

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Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Incidental Music, Op. 61

Eugene Ormandy

Classical - Released December 1, 2023 | Sony Classical

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Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 61 & Ruys Blas Overture, Op, 95

John Nelson

Classical - Released June 15, 2002 | Parlophone UK

As beautiful and complete a performance of Mendelssohn's incidental music from A Midsummer Night's Dream as there has ever been, this recording comes with all of the fanfares, interludes, dances, songs (exquisitely sung by Rebecca Evans and Joyce DiDonato), choruses, and even the melodramas that other recordings usually omit. As a bonus, it also includes the roughest, brashest, and most brilliant a performance of Mendelssohn's concert Overture for Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas as has ever been recorded. Every intention of the composer is fulfilled here, from the out-of-the-abyss low brass in the opening through the heroic cello theme that leads to apotheosis. The tone of the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris ranges from the sublime -- its enchanting flute chords that open and close the music -- to the ridiculous -- the braying of Bottom -- to the awesome -- the brass throughout Ruy Blas. John Nelson is a great Mendelssohn conductor: his A Midsummer Night's Dream shimmers and sparkles and his Ruy Blas barks and roars.© TiVo