“[Mendelssohn] was certainly THE greatest composer under 18 that we know of (and yes I’m including Mozart in that), and his best music ranks up there with the best composers in history.”
Sticky Notes | Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Sticky Notes podcast had this wonderful episode about Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Nights Dream. It strikes the perfect balance: weaving together the composer’s background, the craft of his orchestration, and detailed comparisons of music passages. It’s the kind of introduction that makes the music both accessible and luminous:
Much has been said about Mendelssohn’s genius in creating the sound world of fairies. Later ballets and operas (Giselle, Rusalka, The Nutcracker) explored magical atmospheres, but Mendelssohn opened the door. This really pushes string sections to their limits. The quicksilver brilliance is actually quite technically demanding. Playing light pixie-dust music is much harder than Wagner shouting with 20 brass backing you up.
Yet what often goes unnoticed is another aspect of his genius: the way Mendelssohn composes pride—the human grandeur, the nobility of presence. In the Overture around 1'10’’, the fairy world suddenly yields to a celebratory march. It feels as though a royal procession strides into the enchanted forest, scattering pixie dust with its elegance and authority. It’s not brash triumph but something more refined: a poised, confident pride, deeply connected to Mendelssohn’s upbringing in a family of immense wealth and cultural standing, where—as was said—“all of Europe came to their house.”
To my delight, the Sticky Note podcast also featured snippets from Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1994 Deutsche Grammophon recording—my own favorite interpretation. The following video starts at 1'02’’, with the best version, for a taste of the fairy-to-human transition:
🎧 Start at 1:02 to hear the fairy music give way to the royal march.