A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn) form and shaped by regular phrasings and harmonic transitions. The piece is also noted for its striking instrumental effects, such as the emulation of scampering 'fairy feet' at the beginning and the braying of Bottom as an ass (effects which were influenced by the aesthetic ideas and suggestions of Mendelssohn's friend at the time, Adolf Bernhard Marx). Heinrich Eduard Jacob, in his biography of the composer, said that Mendelssohn had scribbled the chords after hearing an evening breeze rustle the leaves in the garden of the family's home. The overture begins with four chords in the winds. Following the first
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn) This was followed by incidental music for Sophocles' "Oedipus" (Potsdam, 1 November 1845; published posthumously as Op. 93) and Jean Racine's "Athalie" (Berlin, 1 December 1845; Op. 74). The "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture, Op. 21, originally written as an independent piece 16 years earlier, was incorporated into the Op. 61 incidental music as its overture, and the first of its 14 numbers. There are also vocal sections and other purely instrumental movements, including the Scherzo, Nocturne and "Wedding March". The vocal numbers include the song "Ye spotted snakes" and the melodramas "Over hill, over dale", "The Spells", "What hempen