Analysis Of Mendlessohn's Overture To Midsummer Night's Drea
Analysis Of Mendlessohn's Overture To Midsummer Night's Dream
An Analysis of Mendelssohn’s Overture to Shakespeare’s Mid Summer Night’s Dream.
Mendelssohn’s Mid Summer Night’s Dream is written in sonata form. It has the attributes of sonata form having an Exposition, Development, Recapitulation, and Coda. Mendelssohn’s piece has 2 subjects and within each subject he has 2 themes. Each of the themes represents a certain area of the play. For example Subject 1 theme 1 represents the fairies Subject1 theme 2 represents the Duke the lovers theme is in the 2nd subject and the 2nd subject theme 2 is Bergomask’s tune. This piece is set in the key of E major which will allow it to modulate to B major the dominant, E minor which is the tonic minor and C# the relative minor however the piece never makes a significant move to this key.
Introduction
The introduction is very small and sets the theme of the whole piece. Mendelssohn use magic chords ……..which sound very magical and set the scene and mood for the first subject theme 1, the fairy theme. These chords sound magical because some of the chords and diminished and others are inverted to create that magical effect.
Exposition
The Exposition is in E minor and is known as the fairy theme. This theme has very fast quavers played by the 1st and 2nd violins. The fairy theme is a combination of plucked and bowed strings, with a very close harmonic interval. The speed is very fast and all of the string section is playing quite high. At bar 62 the piece move into the 1st subject 2nd theme in E major is the Dukes theme as and the whole orchestra is playing. This theme of a consists scale based pattern in octaves in the violins and a massive homophonic texture due the orchestral tutti. At bar 90 the fairy theme returns and as the story continues the mortals and fairies are mixing. At this section the lower brass strings sustain a tonic pedal note while the Strings produce a pedal note but in a crochet quaver rhythm. However at bar 130 the music modulates to the key of B major the music is very romantic. This is the second subject theme 1 and it is a very lyrical and increases in texture to represent love as depth and power. This theme has features small fan fare...