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MUSI 1306 (section) November 30, 2016 Michael Johnson: Composer Biography (leader) Janet Hodges: History of the Work Mark Smith: Analysis of the Work

Group Projct: Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Michael Johnson: Composer Biography

Felix Mendelssohn benefited from a rare combination of natural genius and boundless

cultural opportunities. Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809 in Hamburg. Two years

later, the Mendelssohn family moved to Berlin. His father, Abraham Mendelssohn, was one of

Berlin’s most successful bankers and his grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was one of the

leading philosophers of his era. Although Felix Mendelssohn was one of the greatest child

prodigies of his time, and he traveled around Europe demonstrating musical abilities that

routinely amazed his audiences, his sister, Fanny, showed the most promise as a musician. Of

course, it was not considered “proper” for women to have careers in music, and Fanny was

relegated to amateur music making while her brother was given the opportunity to become a

professional musician. Along with Mendelssohn natural musical gifts, he was raised in an

unusually rich intellectual environment. He was fluent in German, English, French, and Italian,

he read ancient Greek and Latin, painted with watercolors, and was conversant in topics ranging

from mathematics to Shakespeare. The combination of natural proclivities and a quality

education created a musical genius.

At six, Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons from his mother, but a year later he

began professional lessons with Marie Bigot. Mendelssohn would move on to learn the

traditional rules and procedures of counterpoint from Karl F. Zelter. During his studies,

Mendelssohn was fortunate to meet some of the greatest artists of the time. These meetings

would greatly influence Mendelssohn. For example, the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang

von Goethe flattered Mendelssohn with praise. Ronald Lewis states, “The visit was most

important to the young Mendelssohn, who remained at the 72 year-old writer's home for over

two weeks. Goethe was fascinated by the gifted young man, and the two would later correspond

via a series of letters. Later, when Goethe heard Mendelssohn's B minor pianoforte quartet, he

showed such appreciation that the young composer dedicated the piece to him.”1

By the time Mendelssohn attended Berlin University in 1826, he decided to make music

his career, and in the following years he traveled to Italy, England, Scotland, and France and

frequently wrote musical pieces that embodied the musical traditions of these cultures. By 1829,

Mendelssohn secured a post at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. During his tenure at the

orchestra, Mendelssohn began reviving interest in the music of J.S. Bach by staging popular

concerts featuring Bach’s music. Although J.S. Bach is well known today, in 1800 his music was

only known among performers. Mendelssohn’s performances of Bach’s works like the “St.

Matthew Passion,” created a renewed interest in Bach’s works that exists today.

Mendelssohn wrote in a variety of genres. Being primarily a pianist, Mendelssohn wrote

the usual piano trios, quartets, and sonatas. He loved Beethoven’s string quartets and, in turn, 1 Ronald Lewis, “Felix Mendelssohn,” accessed November 24, 2016, http://www.felixmendelssohn.com/felix_mendelssohn_bio_002.htm.

wrote many string quintets and quartets. He even wrote a rare string octet. Mendelssohn

composed five symphonies, dabbled in opera, wrote large choral works and songs, a handful of

organ pieces, and, of course, orchestral overtures like Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Janet Hodges: History of the Work

Overtures have been written since the early baroque era (there is an instrumental

introduction to Monteverdi’s Orpheus). Traditionally, overtures had been defined as instrumental

pieces written to introduce a larger work such as an opera, ballet, or stage play. By the early

nineteenth century, composers began writing concert overtures that were usually inspired by a

play or story but did not necessarily introduce a larger artwork. These new concert overtures

became known as independent compositions; they were no longer just an introduction.

According to Roger Kamien, a concert overture has “one movement, usually in sonata form. The

romantic concert overture was modeled after the opera overture, a one-movement composition

that establishes the mood of an opera. But the concert overture is not intended to usher in a stage

work; it is an independent composition.”2 One of the earliest nineteenth-century concert

overtures was written by Carl Maria von Weber, who wrote two concert overtures, Der

Beherrscher der Geister (“The Ruler of the Spirits,” 1811). This overture was simply a revision

of an incomplete overture to his opera Rübezahl. Weber also wrote Jubel-Ouvertüre (“Jubilee-

Overture,” 1818). Although Weber’s overtures are worthy of study, they do not constitute the

fully formed concept of the stand alone concert overture.

Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the first examples of a

true concert overture. It was written in 1826 when Mendelssohn was just seventeen years old. Of

2 Roger Kamien, Music: An Appreciation (New York: McGraw Hill, 2011), 293.

course, this overture is based on William Shakespeare’s play, which Mendelssohn had read

earlier in 1826. Ironically, the German translation of the play was created by August Wilhelm

Schlegel, who was a distant relative of Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn did not create this overture as

an exact chronological depiction of the play. Instead, he simply represents the main characters of

the play through music. Mendelssohn, himself, described how his overture should be interpreted,

“I believe it will suffice to remember how the rulers of the elves, Oberon and Titania, constantly

appear throughout the play with all their train, now here and now there; then comes Prince

Theseus of Athens and joins a hunting party in the forest…then the two pairs of tender lovers,

who lose and find themselves; finally the troop of clumsy, coarse tradesmen, who ply their

ponderous amusements; then again the elves, who entice all - and on this the piece is constructed.

When at the end all is happily resolved… the elves return and bless the house, and disappear as

morning arrives.”3 Mendelssohn dedicated his overture to the Crown Prince of Prussia (to whom

he also dedicated his subsequent overtures The Hebrides and The Lovely Melusina). Fourteen

years later, after the prince became King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King Wilhelm would later ask

Mendelssohn to compose more music related to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although

Mendelssohn was very young when he completed this overture, it was performed just a year after

it was completed in Stettin, Prussia. Mendelssohn’s Overture To a Midsummer Night’s Dream is

a brilliant example of his early musical genius.

3 “A Midsummer Night's Dream (Overture and Incidental Music),” accessed November 24, 2016, http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/midsummer-nights-dream-overture-and-incidental-music-felix-mendelssohn.

Mark Smith: Analysis of the Work

Felix Mendelssohn was both praised and criticized for being a “classicist.” A classicist, in

Mendelssohn’s case, is a composer who tends to refine the forms and styles of the past, instead

of inventing entirely new genres and styles. For example, Mendelssohn did not invent the

overture, overtures had been written two hundred years before his time, but he did refine the

nature of the overture genre by creating a concert overture (which an overture that does not

introduce a larger work). Another example of Mendelssohn’s classicism lies in the form used

within the Overture To a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn uses sonata form in his

concert overture. This form was one of the most popular forms used in the classical era.

Mendelssohn’s sonata form uses five themes. All five themes are presented in the

exposition, which then proceeds to a development section that only utilizes two of these themes.

The recapitulation restates all five themes and then a coda ends the overture. Mark Evan Bonds

describes how these themes relate to the Shakespeare’s characters: “Mendelssohn introduces all

the principal characters to us in the exposition. In the development sections, the scurrying theme

associated with fairies predominates. Mendelssohn captures the sometimes chaotic magical spirit

of the midsummer night’s forest by having different sections of the orchestra play in

simultaneously contrasting dynamics. For example, he brings in the horns fortissimo even as the

strings and high winds maintain their elfin pianissimo figure.”4

Mendelssohn utilized the same orchestral forces used in most classical-era symphonies.

An exception, though, is that Mendelssohn included an ophicleide to the usual collection of

strings, timpani, and pairs of woodwinds, horns, and trumpets. An ophicleide is an early version

of the tuba. This bass-sounding instrument was perfect for representations of Bottom the weaver

4 Mark Evan Bonds, Listen to This (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2011), 257.

braying like a jackass in the recapitulation. Today, even in productions of the Overture to A

Midsummer Night’s Dream, most modern orchestras use a tuba instead of the ophicleide.

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an excellent example of Mendelssohn’s skill

in conjuring mystical elements through an orchestra. At the opening, the violins represent fairies

with a series a fast flourishes. These figures, which appear to be so light and fun, reappear in the

exposition as dark spirits. The brass section evokes not only the stupidity of Bottom but the

threatening darkness of the forest and Theseus’ hunting party.

Although Mendelssohn’s use of form and orchestration is traditional, the Overture to A

Midsummer Night’s Dream contained innovations. Donald Grout states, “It is a brilliant example

of self-renewing perpetual motion, of a heavy orchestra tamed to tiptoe like a chamber ensemble.

Although the overture is programmatic in the same sense as Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony, it

relies more on orchestral color and appeal to the listener’s imagination.”5 Mendelssohn managed

to make the orchestra more flexible than it had ever been before.

5 Donald J. Grout, A History of Western Music (New York: Norton, 2001), 553.