Post by erik on Feb 24, 2024 19:48:26 GMT -5
In honor of the recent passing of the legendary Japanese-born conductor Seiji Ozawa, we look at a recording he made in 1992 of Mendelssohn's complete incidental music for Shakespeare's famous play "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
Mendelssohn: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (COMPLETE INCIDENTAL MUSIC), OP. 61
Soprano: KATHLEEN BATTLE
Mezzo-Soprano: FREDERICA VON STADE
Narrator: DAME JUDI DENCH
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Boston Symphony Orchestra/SEIJI OZAWA (Deutsche Grammophon)
The closest thing classical music had that resembled what we know in our day as the modern day film score was what was known as the “Incidental Music” genre, usually music a composer writes for a specific play or stage drama of some kind. A number of examples existed in this form in the 19th century, including Franz Schubert’s score for “Rosamunde” (though the Helmina von Chezy melodrama it went with has mercifully been forgotten, the music itself has mercifully not been); and Beethoven’s music for Johann von Goethe’s “Egmont”. But perhaps the greatest example of this form was the music that Felix Mendelssohn wrote for a German-language production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The ironic thing was that, although the young Mendelssohn had written a concert overture to the play when he was seventeen and a half years old, in 1826, he had no intention of writing an entire score for the play, until a commission from King Frederick William IV of Prussia came along in 1842.
Following the overture (which alternates between E Major and E Minor), the ensuing score includes such famous excerpts as the G Minor Scherzo; the Wedding March (in C Major); the Nocturne (in E Major), and also features parts for a narrator to guide the audience through Shakespeare’s mysterious world of accidental love that befalls Tatiana, Oberon, Lysander, and others involved in this tale. Also included are parts for a soprano, mezzo-soprano, and a female chorus. The overture itself is usually around eleven minutes in length, and the successive incidental music is around 44 minutes, making for an average performance time of 55 minutes in length. While Mendelssohn certainly conducted the overture during his lifetime as music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, performances of the entire incidental music did not come into common practice until the early 20th century. The irony is that the catalyst for this was silent filmmaker Max Rheinhardt, who had encouraged a young Erich Wolfgang Korngold (later to become both a great composer of “serious” music and film Music) to re-orchestrate the score for his own cinematic take of the play in 1935. Since then, the complete score has seen many performances and recordings, with the narration sometimes in Mendelssohn’s native German, but most time in Shakespeare’s own English.
A truly great recording of this work was this one done in 1992 by the late Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, along with the distinguished female classical vocalists Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade, and legendary British actress Dame Judi Dench narrating the proceedings. The result is a very skillful rendering of one of the great examples of pre-film score music in classical music history, not to say the least as a great testimonial to Ozawa, who passed away on February 6, 2024 at the age of 88, and the twenty-nine years he spent, from 1973 to 2002, as the Boston Symphony’s music director, the longest in that great American orchestra’s history.
Mendelssohn: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (COMPLETE INCIDENTAL MUSIC), OP. 61
Soprano: KATHLEEN BATTLE
Mezzo-Soprano: FREDERICA VON STADE
Narrator: DAME JUDI DENCH
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Boston Symphony Orchestra/SEIJI OZAWA (Deutsche Grammophon)
The closest thing classical music had that resembled what we know in our day as the modern day film score was what was known as the “Incidental Music” genre, usually music a composer writes for a specific play or stage drama of some kind. A number of examples existed in this form in the 19th century, including Franz Schubert’s score for “Rosamunde” (though the Helmina von Chezy melodrama it went with has mercifully been forgotten, the music itself has mercifully not been); and Beethoven’s music for Johann von Goethe’s “Egmont”. But perhaps the greatest example of this form was the music that Felix Mendelssohn wrote for a German-language production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The ironic thing was that, although the young Mendelssohn had written a concert overture to the play when he was seventeen and a half years old, in 1826, he had no intention of writing an entire score for the play, until a commission from King Frederick William IV of Prussia came along in 1842.
Following the overture (which alternates between E Major and E Minor), the ensuing score includes such famous excerpts as the G Minor Scherzo; the Wedding March (in C Major); the Nocturne (in E Major), and also features parts for a narrator to guide the audience through Shakespeare’s mysterious world of accidental love that befalls Tatiana, Oberon, Lysander, and others involved in this tale. Also included are parts for a soprano, mezzo-soprano, and a female chorus. The overture itself is usually around eleven minutes in length, and the successive incidental music is around 44 minutes, making for an average performance time of 55 minutes in length. While Mendelssohn certainly conducted the overture during his lifetime as music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, performances of the entire incidental music did not come into common practice until the early 20th century. The irony is that the catalyst for this was silent filmmaker Max Rheinhardt, who had encouraged a young Erich Wolfgang Korngold (later to become both a great composer of “serious” music and film Music) to re-orchestrate the score for his own cinematic take of the play in 1935. Since then, the complete score has seen many performances and recordings, with the narration sometimes in Mendelssohn’s native German, but most time in Shakespeare’s own English.
A truly great recording of this work was this one done in 1992 by the late Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, along with the distinguished female classical vocalists Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade, and legendary British actress Dame Judi Dench narrating the proceedings. The result is a very skillful rendering of one of the great examples of pre-film score music in classical music history, not to say the least as a great testimonial to Ozawa, who passed away on February 6, 2024 at the age of 88, and the twenty-nine years he spent, from 1973 to 2002, as the Boston Symphony’s music director, the longest in that great American orchestra’s history.