On May 31, 1997, the Gulbenkian Choir and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century opened the Holland Festival with a series of staged performances of Mendelssohn's "A midsummer night's dream". A CD of the live recordings of this production that were made in Vredenburg over a week later has been released on The Grand Tour; a label exclusively dedicated to the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century
… conducted by Frans Bruggen. Mendelssohn wrote the overture to his "Sommernachts-traum" at the age of 17. It was not until much later that the other parts (including the famous wedding march) were created at the insistence of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who wanted to support his cultural policy with this assignment. The first full performance took place in 1843. (HJ) _more