Classical Music | Piano Music

Felix Mendelssohn

Scherzo from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"  Play

Sung Chang Piano

Recorded on 04/30/2016, uploaded on 04/30/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream             Mendelssohn, arr. Rachmaninoff

The orchestral Scherzo, from Mendelssohn’s Opus 61, No. 1, comes from the incidental music he composed for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is one of Rachmaninoff’s “most vivid paraphrases” (Max Harrison). Mendelssohn composed the work on commission from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and completed it in 1842. The Scherzo, transcribed by Rachmaninoff in 1933, is extremely difficult to play on the piano because of the density of the writing; there is so much going on at once.                 Notes by James E. Frazier