Mendelssohn – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wedding March (Janet Baker, reference rec.: Otto Klemperer)
Overture
The overture was premiered in Stettin (then in Prussia; now Szczecin, Poland) on 20 February 1827, at a concert conducted by Carl Loewe. Mendelssohn had turned 18 just over two weeks earlier. He had to travel 80 miles through a raging snowstorm to get to the concert, which was his first public appearance.
Scherzo
Act 1 was played without music. The Scherzo, with its sprightly scoring, dominated by chattering winds and dancing strings, acts as an intermezzo between acts 1 and 2. The Scherzo leads directly into the first melodrama, a passage of text spoken over music. Oberon’s arrival is accompanied by a fairy march, scored with triangle and cymbals.
March of the Fairies
The Scherzo leads directly into the first melodrama, a passage of text spoken over music, in this case, setting up Oberon’s arrival. A fairy march accompanies his entrance, scored with triangle and cymbals to highlight the march rhythm and add transparency to the music.
‘’Ye Spotted Snakes’’
The first of the score’s two concerted vocal pieces, “You spotted snakes,” opens Act II’s second scene, as Titania’s attendants sing incantations to protect their queen as she sleeps. Oberon enters the glade, and an eerie ascending figure in the first violins accompanies him as he squeezes the flower, dripping its nectar onto the sleeping Titania’s eyelids.
Intermezzo
The second intermezzo comes at the end of the second act.
Nocturne
The tranquil Nocturne, with its solo horn doubled by bassoons, plays as the lovers sleep between Acts III and IV.
Wedding March
The intermezzo between Acts IV and V is none other than the famous Wedding March, perhaps the most popular number ever composed by Mendelssohn. It accompanies a triple wedding for Demetrius and Helena, Lysander and Hermia, and Theseus and Hippolyta.
Funeral March
A little parody of a funeral march accompanies the death of the title characters, whose epilogue Theseus declines to see in favor of a Bergomask dance. The dance uses Bottom’s braying from the overture as its main thematic material.
Dance of the Clowns
Ein Tanz von Rüpeln (A dance of clowns)
Finale: ‘’Through the House’’
After Puck’s speech, the final musical number is heard – “Through this house give glimmering light” (“Bei des Feuers mattem Flimmern”), scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano and women’s chorus.
Instruments:
- two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons
- two horns, two trumpets, ophicleide
- timpani
The incidental music adds:
- a third trumpet, three trombone
- triangle, cymbals, soprano, mezzo-soprano
- women’s chorus
The ophicleide part was originally written for English bass horn (“corno inglese di basso”), which was also used at the first performance; the composer subsequently replaced this instrument with the ophicleide in the first published edition.