3. Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's Dream

Stereo: http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=auSlO4Hdc_Q&fmt=18 Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847). Midsummer Night's Dream. XI. Finale "Bei des Feuers mattem Flimmern". La Chapelle Royale. Sandrine Piau (Soprano). Delphine Collot (Soprano). Dir: Philippe Herreweghe. Of a distinguished intellectual, artistic and banking family in Berlin, he grew up in a privileged environment (the family converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1816, taking the additional "Bartholdy"). He studied the piano with Ludwig Berger and theory and composition with Zelter, producing his first piece in 1820; thereafter, a profusion of sonatas, concertos, string symphonies, piano quartets and Singspiels revealed his increasing mastery of counterpoint and form. Besides family travels and eminent visitors to his parents' salon (Humboldt, Hegel, Klingemann, A.B. Marx, Devrient), early influences included the poetry of Goethe (whom he knew from 1821) and the Schlegel translations of Shakespeare; these are traceable in his best music of the period, including the exuberant String Octet op.20 and the vivid, poetic overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream op.21. His gifts as a conductor also showed themselves early in 1829 he directed a pioneering performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Berlin Singakademie, promoting the modern cultivation of Bach's music.