Ein Sommernachtstraum. Ouverture

An enchanted night, virtually fragrant dreams, floating fairies – the sensory associations evoked and fashioned by the music of Mendelssohn’s overture “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are almost inexhaustible.

Written by the composer in 1826 in a carefree summer spent between the summerhouse and his siblings, this is without doubt Mendelssohn’s most popular concert overture.

The renowned musicologist Friedhelm Krummacher shows in the introduction how finely Mendelssohn interwove motifs and themes. He also looks into the origins of the work, especially a conjectural firstsketch, which is reproduced in facsimile in the appendix.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth, Bärenreiter in cooperation with the Biblioteka Jagiellonska Kraków published a high-quality facsimile designed for the bibliophile, vividly bringing the composer’s delicate handwriting to life.