Program Notes: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night's Dream

Felix Mendelssohn: A Snapshot 

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) grew up in Hamburg and Berlin at the heart of European intellectual life, the scion of a prominent Jewish-German family. His father was a noted banker and his grandfather Moses was among the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment. Struggling with the pervasive antisemitism of the era, the family largely converted to Christianity within these generations. Mendelssohn was baptized when he was 7, but retained a strong awareness and sensitivity towards his heritage.  

The young Mendelssohn received the best possible education, which bore early fruit in his musical pursuits. He showed himself a true genius, with a string of great masterpieces dating from his teenage years. Among these pieces was the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed when he was just 17. Schumann later dubbed him “the 19th-century Mozart.” 

Literature, drama, poetry and folklore were foundational to his early creativity. As a well-off young man, he traveled extensively around Europe and many vivid experiences inspired his compositions at this time. His musical style sparkled with elegant textures and unlocked new heights of expressive potential, but always with an emotional balance. 

Mendelssohn’s life as composer, conductor and performer was very intense, hardworking and short. His many contributions to musical culture were not limited to his own compositions. He championed hitherto neglected composers, mounting the first performance of the Saint Matthew Passion since Bach’s death, and the first performance ever of Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C major. 

Lastly, he adopted and refined many aspects of the concert-going experience that we still recognize today, among them, the dedicated role of the conductor, the overture-concerto-symphony structure of symphonic concerts and the provision for the audience of … informative program notes! 

The Fair Melusina 

Each half of our program begins with a unique Mendelssohnian musical innovation: the concert overture, an opening piece not linked to an opera or theatrical performance but conceived to stand alone on the orchestral stage. Of Mendelssohn’s five works in the genre, The Fair Melusina came second-to-last, dating from 1833. Its inspiration is the medieval legend of a beautiful water maiden cursed to take the form of a serpent (or in some versions a fish) from the waist down for one day of every week. Keeping this secret, she marries a knight after he promises not to seek her out on the “serpent day.” But he is unable to resist his curiosity and discovers Melusina in her hybrid form. Brokenhearted, she flees and returns to live in the waters forever.  

Mendelssohn did not seek to tell this story, but rather to illustrate its emotional elements in music — the doubt and anxiety of a marriage (he called it a “misalliance”) based on a difficult and uncomfortable secret. He also captured the movement of river waters with ingenious rippling from the woodwind section — an effect that Richard Wagner (despite publicly attacking Mendelssohn for his Jewish heritage) was content to borrow and elaborate on for the opening of his own Das Rheingold. 

Three Motets Op. 39 

Towering atop the Spanish Steps in Rome, the church of Trinitá dei Monti was established by the French monarchy and run by a community of French nuns for several centuries. When Mendelssohn visited Rome in 1830, he visited and heard the nuns sing. The mysterious sound (they sang unseen, hidden behind a screen) moved him to compose these three motets for women’s voices and organ. Our conductor Nicholas McGegan has orchestrated the accompaniment for concert performance. The texts — tender, stern and rejoicing — are drawn from Latin hymns and verses of Psalms 113 and 128, set to music that recalls the counterpoint of Bach and Handel. 

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

With its unique blend of comedy, pathos and enchanting characters, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps Shakespeare’s best-loved play. Written around 1595 for The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (which employed Shakespeare), it has almost never been off stage since then. 

The play deals with four groups of characters. In Athens, Duke Theseus and his betrothed, Hippolyta, are about to be married. Two pairs of young lovers — Hermia and Lysander, and Demetrius and Helena — flee by night into the nearby forest and magical realm, where Oberon, king of the fairies, is in dispute with his consort, Titania. Oberon is assisted by his fairy-servant, Puck. And lastly, a group of clumsy Athenian workmen, hoping to impress Theseus by performing a dire tragic play to enhance his wedding celebrations, meet in the same woods to rehearse it. They are led by Nick Bottom, who has cast himself in the lead role.  

The mortals get caught up in magic and fairy-lore as Oberon bewitches Titania to win the fairy dispute. Lovers’ relationships are turned upside-down and much verbal fencing ensues. The rehearsal, already going badly, ends in pandemonium when Puck transforms Bottom into a vile beast — an ass! Although Bottom somehow does make a truly adorable donkey — another Shakespearean stroke of genius — he is a most unsuitable match for a fairy queen. But enchanted, Titania takes him as her true love. When Oberon commands Puck to set everything back in its right order, the mortals awake from their dreams and return to Athens to attend the royal wedding. The play is performed successfully. And the fairies attend as well, to bless the house and all the mortals in it.   

Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

Mendelssohn first read and acted out Shakespeare at home with his sisters in a German translation, and he was clearly charmed by the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A prodigious teenager, he was inspired to compose the overture as a standalone work, his very first concert overture. Four ethereal woodwind chords open up a world of dream and vision, followed by the flitting of fairies, the comical braying of Bottom in donkey form, noble music befitting the court of Athens and finally, the same four chords bringing the piece to a close. The overture was Mendelssohn’s first smash hit. 

Sixteen years later, Mendelssohn returned to the play to supply incidental music for a fully staged performance. Despite the passage of time, he found a way to incorporate musical material from the overture and create a perfect coherent accompaniment to the play’s action. Since the characters of the play repeatedly call for music, he had many opportunities to insert significant pieces. This later music shows him at the height of his powers in three additional interludes, often performed as a suite. A fairy scherzo brings us to the forest and leads into the first appearance of Puck. A nocturne lulls the sleeping lovers once Puck has set them to rights. And perhaps the definitive “hit” of Mendelssohn’s output: a joyful Wedding March for the ages, which has taken on its own life around the world. 

But our performance today allows an exploration of the other incidental music composed for the original production and even more riches. There are two ravishing songs for upper voices — “Ye spotted snakes with double tongue” is commanded by Titania for her pleasure, while “Through the house give glimmering light” closes the play as the fairies bless the house, both on stage and in the audience. And numerous shorter musical cues give additional drama, humor and pathos to the play. It is a testament to his genius that Mendelssohn could pick up after 15 years without dropping a stitch, to create such a unified work of music — the perfect musical foil to Shakespeare’s play. “Sound, music!” 

Raff Wilson © 2026