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Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their record label Alia Vox with Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it’s clearly been a labour of love. There’s a lot to take in here – four discs, translated texts in five different languages (as well as Shakespeare’s original), a lavishly produced booklet and extensive details of what was obviously a sizeable tour with this repertoire, as well as a cast of 24 actors to speak the dialogue.
It boils down to two complete recordings of the Overture and incidental music, complete with the six melodramas that are usually omitted in concert versions – one with Shakespeare’s text, the other with Schlegel’s classic German translation (the version known to Mendelssohn, and set by him in the incidental music). Two further discs contain the music alone, without the melodramas but with the songs and choruses (again) in a choice of English or German. A useful option to have if, like me, you find that a little of the Rude Mechanicals goes a very long way.
Got all that? Then on to the performance: and you can tell a lot about a Midsummer Night’s Dream from the first four bars of the Overture. Savall’s opening chords are as translucent and as freefloating as you could possibly wish, with a woody, wide-grained quality to the windplaying that promises a ravishing palette of orchestral colour. Off we go, with spiky, silvery fairy strings – thorough bush, thorough brier – until, with a truly explosive thunderclap from the period timpani, the full orchestra enters in all its pageantry.
Fascinatingly (and fittingly), this is an orchestral sonority that evokes the late 18th century. Woodwinds and brass predominate, to say nothing of those supercharged timps. The relative weakness of the (largely vibrato-free) strings, when coupled to Savall’s often clipped phrasing, is probably this set’s single most significant problem. I found myself hankering more than once for Charles Mackerras’s pioneering 1988 account with the OAE (Warner, 2/89).
But Savall is playing a different game, and there’s an almost baroque grandeur to his phrasing and tempos that yields up some wonderfully poetic moments. The Nocturne becomes a sort of sarabande, with plump, stately horns. The violas’ running quavers bustle deliciously under the Overture’s second subject and the Clowns’ Dance could hardly be more earthy. The colours are at their most captivating (or, at any rate, most surprising) in the various melodramas: the lovely little aside for horns and swirling violins as Titania awakes from Oberon’s spell was wholly new to me, and some of Mendelssohn’s supernatural effects make you wonder how well, by 1842, he knew the Symphonie fantastique. Whether these sequences bear repeated listening is another question. The English-speaking actors do a perfectly decent job without ever convincing you that this is a theatrical performance rather than a concert hall recitation (and in a rather boomy acoustic, too). The German actors seem rather more at ease, and their dialogue (which appears to have been dubbed on after the music was recorded) complements the level of the music more naturally. The sung texts, too, sound slightly clearer in the German version (at least to these English ears), though the vocal soloists and the Catalan choir all sing with admirable warmth and commitment.
But again, although they make an excellent reference source (and Mendelssohn’s melodramas deserve to be heard at least once by anyone who loves this score), you’re unlikely to return to the full-length versions too often. It’s generous (and sensible) of Alia Vox to offer the concert alternatives; and if the idea of an expansive, colourful and unusually comprehensive periodinstrument Midsummer Night’s Dream appeals, they’re an enjoyable (and sometimes eye-opening) listen. It’s certainly nice to have the choice. |
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