NYP: KURT MASUR Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: great compositions/performances

NYP: KURT MASUR Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  Eliwoney Cabral

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

CONDUCTOR: KURT MASUR

Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72, Kurt Masur: great compositions/perform

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72, Kurt Masur

  chia79210

貝多芬 歌劇”雷奧諾拉”序曲第三號
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72

Conductor: Kurt Masur
指揮: 庫特．馬殊

Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig
萊比錫布商大廈管絃樂團

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• FABULOUS COMPOSERS/COMPOSITIONS: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Felix Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997): great compositions/performances
• Great Compositions/Performances: Beethoven: Fidelio – Overture / Leonard Bernstein

Felix Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997): great compositions/performances

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)

  lyricpost
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21
(Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Kurt Masur, Conductor)
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

At separate times, Felix Mendelssohn composed music for William Shakespeare‘s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1826, near the start of his career, Mendelssohn wrote a concert overture (Op. 21). In 1842, only a few years before his death, he wrote incidental music (Op. 61) for a production of the play, into which he incorporated the existing Overture. The incidental music includes the world-famous Wedding March. The German title reads Ein Sommernachtstraum.

Overture

The Overture in E major, Op. 21, was written by Mendelssohn at 17 years and 6 months old (it was finished on 6 August 1826),^[1] and George Grove called it “the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music”.^[2] It was written as a concert overture, not associated with any performance of the play. The Overture was written after Mendelssohn had read a German translation of the play in 1826. The translation was by August Wilhelm Schlegel, with help from Ludwig Tieck. There was a family connection as well: Schlegel’s brother Friedrich married Felix Mendelssohn’s aunt Dorothea.^[3]

While a romantic piece in atmosphere, the Overture incorporates many classical elements, being cast in sonata form and shaped by regular phrasings and harmonic transitions. The piece is also noted for its striking instrumental effects, such as the emulation of scampering ‘fairy feet’ at the beginning and the braying of Bottom as an ass (effects which were influenced by the aesthetic ideas and suggestions of Mendelssohn’s friend at the time, Adolf Bernhard Marx). Heinrich Eduard Jacob, in his biography of the composer, said that Mendelssohn had scribbled the chords after hearing an evening breeze rustle the leaves in the garden of the family’s home.^[3]

Following the first theme in the parallel relative minor (E minor) representing the dancing fairies, a transition (the royal music of the court of Athens) leads to a second theme, that of the lovers. A final group of themes, suggesting the craftsmen and hunting calls, closes the exposition. The fairies dominate most of the development section and ultimately have the final word in the coda, just as in Shakespeare’s play.

The Overture was premiered in Stettin (then in Prussia; now Szczecin, Poland) on 20 February 1827,^[4] at a concert conducted by Carl Loewe. Mendelssohn had turned 18 just over two weeks earlier. He had to travel 80 miles through a raging snowstorm to get to the concert,^[5] which was his first public appearance. Loewe and Mendelssohn also appeared as soloists in Mendelssohn’s Concerto in A-flat major for 2 pianos and orchestra, and Mendelssohn alone was the soloist for Carl Maria von Weber‘s Konzertstück in F minor. After the intermission, he joined the first violins for a performance of Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony.

The first British performance of the Overture was conducted by Mendelssohn himself, on 24 June 1829, at the Argyll Rooms in London, at a concert in benefit of the victims of the floods in Silesia, and played by an orchestra that had been assembled by Mendelssohn’s friend Sir George Smart.^[4]

Incidental music

Mendelssohn wrote the incidental music, Op. 61, for A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1842, 16 years after he wrote the Overture. It was written to a commission from King Frederick William IV of Prussia. Mendelssohn was by now the music director of the King’s Academy of the Arts and of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.^[6] A successful presentation of Sophocles‘ Antigone on 28 October 1841 at the New Palace in Potsdam, with music by Mendelssohn (Op. 55) led to the King asking him for more such music, to plays he especially enjoyed. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was produced on 14 October 1843, also at Potsdam. The producer was Ludwig Tieck. This was followed by incidental music for Sophocles’ Oedipus (Potsdam, 1 November 1845; published posthumously as Op. 93) and Jean Racine‘s Athalie (Berlin, 1 December 1845; Op. 74).^[1]

The A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, Op. 21, originally written as an independent piece 16 years earlier, was incorporated into the Op. 61 incidental music as its overture, and the first of its 14 numbers. There are also vocal sections and other purely instrumental movements, including the Scherzo, Nocturne and Wedding March. The vocal numbers include the song “Ye spotted snakes” and the melodramas “Over hill, over dale”, “The Spells”, “What hempen homespuns”, and “The Removal of the Spells”. The melodramas served to enhance Shakespeare’s text.

Related articles

• FABULOUS COMPOSERS/COMPOSITIONS: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Encore: Compositions/Performances: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Fabulous Performances: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61

GREAT COMPOSITIONS/PERFORMANCES: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)

[youtube.com/watch?v=SUDvZaMl4RU&noredirect=1]

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Kurt Masur, Conductor

Live at Gewandhaus, Leipzig

 

Related articles

• FABULOUS COMPOSERS/COMPOSITIONS: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Music from Germany – Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
• Felix Mendelssohn and his Fourth Symphony, “Italian”
• Kurt Masur’s Son Named Assistant Conductor in Boston
• ‘Lost’ Mendelssohn song unearthed

Great Compositions/Performances: “Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine”, Concert Overture in F Major, op 32 by Felix Mendelssohn Gewandhausorchester Leipzig Kurt Masur, conductor

Great Compositions/Performances: Kurt Masur “Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine” Mendelssohn
“Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine”, Concert
Overture in F Major, op 32
by Felix Mendelssohn
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Kurt Masur, conductor

Related articles

• FABULOUS COMPOSERS/COMPOSITIONS: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Encore: Compositions/Performances: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
• Felix Mendelssohn and his Fourth Symphony, “Italian”

Encore: Compositions/Performances: Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)

Great Compositions/Performances:  Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Kurt Masur, Conductor
Live at Gewandhaus, Leipzig

visit:  http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/dream/quotesdream.html
for quotes, like the one bellow,  from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“So quick bright things come to confusion.“—Lysander again speaks to Hermia of the fragility of happiness. (“Confusion” means darkness and destruction.)

Related articles

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is Played at the Marriage of Queen Victoria’s Daughter and Friedrich of Prussia
• Mendelssohn at Seventeen, His Overture (Music)
• Felix Mendelssohn

 

Johannes Brahms: Symphony #4 in e Op 98

Brahms’ legendary fourth symphony, played by the legendary Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Istvan Kertesz.

1st movement: Beginning
2nd movement: 12:20
3rd movement: 24:07
4th movement: 30:13