Summer with Shakespeare

Without Shakespeare, the canon of classical music would look very different. The list of composers inspired by his drama and poetry is long and continues into our own time. In this concert, we encounter two of them.

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was only seventeen when he wrote his wonderful overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is nevertheless regarded as one of his first mature masterpieces, and the young composer succeeds in capturing the full range of emotions found in Shakespeare’s profoundly human comedy.

Romeo and Juliet, the lovers at the heart of Shakespeare’s famous drama, have become the very image of youthful love and sudden, all-consuming passion with a tragic end. In Prokofiev’s well-known music, these surging emotions are brought vividly to life through powerful chords and striking melodies.

Between the Shakespeare-inspired works by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Prokofiev, we hear Reinhold Glière’s sparkling Romantic harp concerto. The outstanding French harpist Xavier de Maistre is the soloist, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is led by Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft.