A Midsummer Night's Dream: Frankfurt

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the LSO mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The evening begins with the youthful exuberance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 1, composed in 1824 when Mendelssohn was just 15 years old. Two years later, Mendelssohn, who adored Shakespeare’s writings, composed his concert overture based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The overture was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece and, many years later, he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by the King of Prussia to provide a score for an entire production in 1843.