SKU: BR.OB-5364-30

Christian Martin Schmidt is laying bare to musical practice the original form of Mendelssohn's epoch-making Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream buried beneath layers of falsified material for the first time.

ISBN 9790004337431. 10 x 12.5 inches.

Autograph lays bare Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream To this day, Mendelssohns epoch-making Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream has been performed on the basis of a more than dubious transmission. Neither the first edition of the parts (1832), and certainly not the print of the score based on these parts (1835) go back directly to the autograph of the 17-year-old composer, which is now located in Krakow. No wonder, since Mendelssohn had breezily given away his original at an early date. The result: during his lifetime, versions were published with his authorization, even though they were full of unintended inconsistencies. Yet the autograph of 1826 is unequivocal: it is clear, practically free of irregularities and diverges considerably from the corrupted printed version. Christian Martin Schmidt comes up with occasionally differing musical passages, but above all with logical and compositionally compelling performance instructions, laying bare to musical practice the original form buried beneath layers of falsified material for the first time.

Christian Martin Schmidt is laying bare to musical practice the original form of Mendelssohn's epoch-making Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream buried beneath layers of falsified material for the first time.

SKU: BR.OB-5624-30

ISBN 9790004348710. 10 x 12.5 inches.

The Overture to Ruy Blas, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's last overture, was not composed as an autonomously conceived score, but as the opening piece of a stage work. Nevertheless, its immediate success at the Leipzig first performance in 1839, as well as the fact that no further contributions to Victor Hugo's drama followed from Mendelssohn's pen soon made it well known in the concert hall. The work's special history, including several arrangements occasioned by various performances, led to the fact that the overture had its largest circulation in the version of the posthumous first edition on which this edition is also based.

First printing posthumously 1851 (Rietz).

SKU: BR.OB-5310-30

ISBN 9790004339947. 10 x 12.5 inches.

To all extents and purposes, Germany is the land of artists, wrote Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1831 while on his travels in Italy; but Italy, he added, is the land of art. Indeed, everywhere he went in Italy, the 22-year-old composer found impulses for his symphony: I have to save the work until I have seen Naples. But although the country fired his inspiration: It will be the merriest piece that I have ever written, he did not actually write the Italian Symphony there. This did not occur until early 1833, when Mendelssohn obtained a commission from London, where he then conducted the first performance in May 1833. Begun the following year, his revision of the piece remained fragmentary, and the composer no longer performed the work himself. The familiar London version thus represents the only closed form of the work which the composer presented to the public. This is the version of the Italian Symphony that is now appearing in the Breitkopf Urtext collection based on the Complete Edition.