Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream - incidental music, Op. 61 (including overture)

‘With baroque music as "flavour of the age", it seems only natural that we should rediscover – indeed reappraise – all that is neat, winsome and uncluttered in Mendelssohn's music, its slender forms and high level of invention. (…) Herreweghe's lively offering is best recommended to those whose main priority is a sense of period orchestral texture' Gramophone ‘…one of the lightest performances of the work that I have ever heard.' Fanfare

This title was released for the first time in 1994.

Peter Maag (1919-2001) was born in Switzerland to a musical family. After studies in theology and philosophy, and an early career as a pianist, he was encouraged to conduct. In that field, his mentors included Ernest Ansermet and, above all, Wilhelm Furtwängler. His success as a conductor grew throughout the late 1940s and 50s, and as early as 1950 he made his first recordings for Decca. The composer back then was Mozart, and Maag would be associated with Mozart’s music in the recording studios, concert halls and opera houses his entire life. His Decca Mozart recordings were collectors’ items and they have all now appeared on Decca Eloquence.

This 2CD set offers popular 19th-century Romantic fare, with a fairy twist. Nymphs, sylphs and fairies make up the subjects of the Mendelssohn, Chopin and Delibes ballet and incidental music. The swaggering Rossini Overtures recording dates from 1958, and most of the recordings on this collection date from early in the stereo era. They were regarded as sonic showpieces when they were first released, and used copies of the original LPs command high prices from collectors even today. The Chopin and Rossini recordings receive their first international CD release, while the

Delibes is a first ever release on CD.

No-one translated the magic of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" into music better than Mendelssohn, whose "Wedding march" from his incidental music to the play turned into a major hit. By the same token, no other conductor manages to conjure up the fairy-tale atmosphere of this score with more skill than André Previn.

Otto Klemperer (1885–1973) was widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century along with his compatriots, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter. These performances date from 1955, a period when Klemperer was at his most authoritative, spending a number of seasons guest conducting in Cologne with great success. As a result, he became principal conductor of the Philharmonia in London in 1959 following the departure of Herbert von Karajan for Berlin.

Both Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream and Beethoven Symphony No.8 are sourced from the original WDR tapes and have been superbly remastered. They appear for the first time on CD.

The Mendelssohn performance, with its wonderful clarity, like the Beethoven Symphony No.8, is in general faster than the studio made recording in 1960.

Käthe Möller-Siepermann was a regular performer at Cologne Opera while Hanna Ludwig also performed there and at other houses in Germany as well as further afield. She retired in 1968 to pursue pedagogical and lecturing opportunities.

One of today’s most-admired singers, Diana Damrau, was a pupil of Ludwig’s.

Vladimir Ashkenazy's truly magical account of Mendelssohn's most beautiful fairy music - A Midsummer Night's Dream - returns to the catalogue, coupled with another fantastical work, The First Walpurgisnacht, in a scintillating performance from Christoph von Dohnanyi.