Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream

Among the most well-known musical treatments is the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Chances are good that you have heard at least part of this Overture, even if you have never attended a classical music concert. It is a landmark in the symphonic repertory, celebrated as much for the quality of the music itself as for the circumstances of its creation. The Overture, written in 1826 at the ripe age of 17, forever established Mendelssohn’s status as a true musical prodigy. One might have judged it something of a miraculous fluke had not Mendelssohn been able to attain the same brilliance in other works.
The Overture’s structure follows the basic form of a rondo, whose main motive—the gradually expanding progression of four chords—recurs at several interior points, in addition to being both the very first and very last music we hear. Onto this motivic stem Mendelssohn grafts rapid string figuration in muted strings, a mysterious passage that may fairly be called the definitive music of the fairy realm. Evocative, too, are the written-in braying of donkeys (recall how Bottom the Weaver is “translated”). With a maturity and self-assuredness beyond his years, Mendelssohn moves effortlessly between light and shadow, between the understated tones of the sprite’s music and the full-blown grandeur of Oberon and Titania. Its sheer exuberance takes an active effort to resist, and the occasional moments of introspection and minor-mode color reinforce how clearly Mendelssohn has his finger on the dramatic pulse. A lovely moment arrives just a minute before the end, when Mendelssohn ushers in a hushed, reverential scene: soft woodwind chords, a low plucked bass note, and an ethereal high violin line that falls slowly by step. Of course he placed this melodic episode where he did for dramatic effect—just before the end—but that does not make it any less affecting.
Though more often heard in isolation, this Overture is but the opening scene in a full suite of Incidental Music that Mendelssohn composed to accompany the stage play. The suite was completed on commission for a Shakespearean performance in Prussia in 1843. From that day until now, the festive Wedding March has enjoyed tremendous public acclaim. Sanctioned by its selection as the royal recessional at the 1858 marriage of Victoria (daughter to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), Mendelssohn’s March is scored to perfection. The radiant main theme in C major returns on three occasions led by full strident brass. Still, we should not overlook the delightfully contrasting episodes in other keys, particularly the second one in F major / D minor. And who among us has stayed long enough at a wedding service to be in our seat for the shimmering coda? Like Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance No. 1 or Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, the Wedding March cannot be heard without its broader resonances of occasion and celebration.
Some of that same buoyant good cheer rounds off the preceding Intermezzo, as Bottom and company assemble to practice their play in the Athenian forest, where they may “rehearse most obscenely and courageously.” Mendelssohn’s Intermezzo actually serves to bridge Act II and Act III. It begins with a hushed Allegro in A minor as Hermia, startled awake from her dream, sets off in search of her beloved Lysander. (This is just after the moment in which Puck has mistakenly bewitched Lysander to fall in love with the scorned Helena.) Mendelssohn deftly covers the necessary stage changes with “chase music”: agitated low strings spiced up with chromatically sliding harmonies, violins and winds in close call-and-response. It is a style he made seem effortless in depiction of the fairies realm during the Overture. Now, writing 17 years later, he manages to breathe that air once more. Hermia finally collapses from her fruitless search; an exposed solo cello motive, proto-Wagnerian in its arching shape and prominent tritone, leads us to a new part of the forest. Enter the tradesmen of Act III. Doubled bassoons are tasked with suggesting the rustic, slightly preposterous spectacle of these players. That previous cello line continues on sustained high E, now transformed to become a fitting drone bass. The Intermezzo as a whole lasts less than four minutes, and the depiction of Bottom and friends just one minute. But Mendelssohn pours into the music so much novelty, color, and atmosphere.

(c) Jason Stell