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09/27/2025
Felix Mendelssohn: Ein Sommernachtstraum, opus 21 and 61
Mi-Young Kim (First Fairy), Anna Erdmann (Second Fairy), Max Urlacher (narrator), RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Anne Katharina Schreiberger (concertmaster), Freiburger Barockorchester, Pablo Heras-Casado (conductor)
Recording: Konzerthaus, Freiburg im Breisgau and Forum, Merzhausen, Germany (May 2023) – 62’29
harmonia mundi HMM 902724 (Distributed by [PIAS]) – Booklet in French, English and German
 
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream never seems to lose its enchantment on stage, screen or concert hall. Neither does Mendelssohn’s Sommernachtstraum. Conductor Pablo Heras‑Casado who leads the Freiburger Barockorchester and RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, brings Shakespeare’s fairyland and Mendelssohn’s beguiling score alive for the concert stage. Mendelssohn was only 17 when he composed his Sommernachtstraum concert Overture in 1826, only to return to it years later in 1842 when the 33 year old composer was named Berlin Generalmusikdirektor at the behest of the Crown Prince of Prussia (soon to be King Frederick William IV). At this time Mendelssohn was asked to expand the concert Overture with incidental music.
Composer Roman Hinke points out Mendelssohn (then a violinist) was present for the Overture’s first performance in Leipzig, yet he was insistent the concert organizer not ‘expound’ on Shakespeare’s play. Instead, Mendelssohn urged only a few short plot points be included in the programme, sufficient enough so “my music can speak quietly for itself. If it is good, and if it is not, the explanation, that will certainly not help it.” Indeed, Mendelssohn’s 12 minute Overture (“Allegro di molto”) is often heard in ballet adaptations, yet it frequently is delivered at a slower tempi. With no dancers to pace, Pablo Heras‑Casado glitteringly sets in flight quicksilver tempos while igniting translucent detail and prismatic sound by the 45 member Freiburger Barockorchester. Ultimately, it conjures the Bard’s mythic characters.
The musical dramaturg is equally dynamic, starting with Mendelssohn’s Scherzo. This interlude features reeds, timpani and pulsing strings while set to Max Urlacher’s narration who describes the play’s action and recites character lines of Oberon, Titania, Bottom, Demetrius, Lysander, not to mention everyone’s favorite feral fairy, Puck. Urlacher’s performance brings all the wit and passion of Shakespeare’s poetry alive, but these episodic entr’actes, one guesses, are probably more effective live in the concert hall than they are on a recording. But that aside, there are many delights in this adaptation.
Equally shimmering is the all-female RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, led by the ethereal soprano Mi‑Young Kim (First Fairy) and alto Anna Erdman (Second Fairy). Other highlights include Mendelssohn’s cantabile motif in homage to Carl Maria von Weber’s musical bow to Shakespeare’s final opera, Oberon (also composed in 1826). Then there is the caressing charm of Mendelssohn’s Intermezzo and the profound musical atmospherics of his Notturno, an “Andante con moto tranquillo”, composed 6 years before his own death at age 39. And not to mention one of the most recognized heralds in all orchestral music, that being Mendelssohn’s fairyland Hochzeitsmarsch (“Wedding March”) with its unblushing horns and rumbling timpani, sounding as lustily romantic as ever.
Lewis J. Whittington
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