JORDI SAVALL

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809 – 1847)

“So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act V - Final Monologue - Puck).

When Felix Mendelssohn was a teenager, Shakespeare’s plays became very popular in Germany in the translations of a relative of the Mendelssohn family. In the summer of 1826, when he was seventeen, he and his sister Fanny spent many afternoons in the garden of their Berlin home reading Shakespeare aloud and sometimes acting out the various roles. They were especially captivated by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a fairy tale of enormous poetic beauty.

In July and August, the 17-year-old composer wrote a brilliant piece that is a perfect reflection of these qualities: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. In its first version it was a duet for piano four hands. In December, he orchestrated it and, in February, the work premiered in a symphony concert.

A brilliant score in the hands of a titan like Jordi Savall, who continues to expand his repertoire; not in vain does he take on Mendelssohn, the composer who organised the first hearing of the St Matthew Passion in Leipzig in 1829, almost 80 years after Bach’s death.

Programme

Felix Mendelssohn

Symphony No 4 in A major, Op. 90 “Italian”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21, Op. 61

Soprano Flore van Meerssche

Mezzosoprano Diana Haller

La Capella Nacional de Catalunya

Lluís Vilamajó, vocal ensamble coach

Le Concert des Nations

Concertino Lina Tur Bonet

Conductor Jordi Savall

With the support of the Culture Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Co-financed by the European Union. With the generous support of Aline Foriel-Destezet. With the financial support of the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Occitanie.

OCTOBER 2023

Friday 6 19.30 h

Turn E From 10 to 145 €

Approximate running time: 2 h