Search - Joyce DiDonato, Felix Mendelssohn, John Nelson :: Mendelssohn/Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights Dream

Can I give this one 15 STARS??

madamemusico | Cincinnati, Ohio USA | 01/30/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is so rare nowadays to hear a CD that is fascinating from beginning to end, that engages the mind and heart as this one does. Though I am sure there are many out there who would consider "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to be one of Shakespeare's lesser plays, the delightful fun and wordplay make it, to me, one of his most whimsical and fanciful creations. And Mendelssohn wrote some of his most whimsical and fanciful music for it.



The problems with its presentation, however, are twofold. First, one must have a conductor who is not afraid to take it at or near score, which means not only swiftly but also light and delicately. To this end I have only heard three recordings that fulfill those requirements, the 1942 Toscanini-Philadelphia version, an old and now-forgotten 1950s recording by the great Paul Kletzki, and this one. Otherwise, you have the music played at the right speed but too heavily (Toscanini-NBC and De Burgos-New Philharmonia), or played too slowly (everyone else).



The second problem is, how much of it do you include so that it will make some "sense"? Quite aside from the full-length pieces that we all enjoy (the overture, You spotted snakes, the Scherzo, Nocturne, Wedding March and Finale), there are so many "little snippets" meant to accompany the spoken drama that simply sound odd and disembodied when presented without text. This is the only recording of the music that I find completely satisfying, as it includes large excerpts of the play as foreground to Mendelssohn's music, as it was intended. I can see where, to some music-lovers, this might seem annoying, but this IS what the composer intended! (I once actually saw a performance of the play with Mendelssohn's music in it, and it was quite delightful. And I still own a copy of the 1935 Max Steiner film which uses a good portion of the Mendelssohn music, along with lesser pieces written by Korngold.)



What we have here, then, is a "concept" CD that works brilliantly. The actors of the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company are all excellent in their roles (though I am more used to Puck being performed by an adolescent boy, not by an adult actor who sounds like a truck driver!), and to hear the music "in context" provides a theatrical experience similar to listening to a radio play.



I cannot thank Virgin Classics enough for producing this magnificent album. I agree that soprano Kathleen Battle was much finer on the Ozawa set than Rebecca Evans here, but that is a very small caveat...after all, the soprano only gets 2 songs and Evans is by no means terrible, she's just not Battle. (Besides, the conductor on the Battle recording is Ozawa who is just too slow, especially in the Overture and Scherzo, whereas Nelson is just right.) The Ensemble Orchestral de Paris plays superbly (is this a studio-only group? I'm not sure that I know of this orchestra), the chorus is wonderful, and the recorded sound is simply breathtaking. Virgin's engineers have managed to capture, without over-exaggerating, both the spoken and musical aspects of this performance in a completely natural soundstage (oftimes I felt as if I were actually listening to the orchestra live!) without losing the soft, delicate passages or overblasting the loud ones. This is a recording that belongs on the shelf of EVERYONE who likes either Mendelssohn, Shakespeare, or both!!"