A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn)
On two occasions, Felix Mendelssohn composed music for William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. First in 1826, near the start of his career, he wrote a concert overture. Later, in 1842, five years before his death, he wrote incidental music for a production of the play, into which he incorporated the existing overture. The incidental music includes the famous "Wedding March".
Portrait of Mendelssohn by James Warren Childe, 1839
Image: Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen
Image: Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen
Image: Orchesterwerke Romantik Themen
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the mature Violin Concerto, the String Octet, and the melody used in the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.
Portrait from 1846
Felix Mendelssohn aged 12 (1821) by Carl Joseph Begas
First page of the manuscript of Mendelssohn's Octet (1825) (now in the US Library of Congress)
The composer's study in Mendelssohn House, a museum in Leipzig