Notturno from the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1843)

The Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the wonders of the musical world. It is scarcely less miraculous that, at exactly twice the age he was when he wrote the Overture, Mendelssohn was able to recapture his youthful inspiration and provide equally enchanting incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s play in Potsdam in 1843. Although some of it could conceivably have been written by the teenage composer, some of it, like the Notturno, could not. At the end of the third act, as the four mixed-up lovers fall unhappily asleep, Puck administers the magic juice that will prove on their waking that “Jack shall have Jill; nought shall go ill.” So, anticipating the happy ending, Mendelssohn offers a serene piece of night music with one of the loveliest horn solos in the repertoire briefly but realistically interrupted by a harmonically uneasy episode in the middle.