Stage Concerts (Incidental Music)

Artists

Orquesta Ciudad de Granada

Coro de la Orquesta Ciudad de Granada

Héctor Eliel Márquez, choir director

Nuria Rial, soprano

Mª José Moreno, soprano

José Sánchez-Montes, visual arrangements and direction

Tama visual design

Paul McCreesh, music director

Programme

The Magic of the Night

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (Transfigured Night. Version for string orchestra, 1943)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Ein Sommernachtstraum, Op. 61 (A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 1827-1842)

A new Granada Festival Production

Music for the Stage and for the Night

A night opening for the Festival accompanied by equally nocturnal music. In 1899, Arnold Schoenberg composed a piece based on a symbolist poem by Richard Dehmel. The piece, intended for a string sextet, resembled a late-romantic, chromatic style, and was entitled Transfigured Night. Many years later, in 1943, while already living in the United States, Schoenberg made a version for string orchestra, which has been circulating around even more than the original composition. In the second part, the concert includes an even more popular work: the music that Mendelssohn wrote for a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Overture, written in 1827, at the age of 18, is in itself a true masterpiece. The rest of the parts, fifteen years later, captivate the bubbling magical world of Shakespeare’s fairies in a fascinating way. This new production of the Festival has a scenic setting of projections and lighting that envelops the audience in a dreamlike environment based on the literary inspirations of both music pieces.