Dream of Midsummer

George Szell's Philips Concertgebouw legacy includes some distinguished recordings, with the scintillating Midsummer Night's Dream suite taking pride of place. Few if any rivals can match the ''Scherzo'' (not even Szell's later Cleveland recording is as buoyant or precise), while the Overture is extraordinarily well drilled and the ''Nocturne'', although cool, has a genuine sense of repose. The Schubert Rosamunde excerpts display all the drive and textural clarity that Szell habitually brought to, say, the Great C major Symphony…

"…a performance full of character and joy. It bristles with energy without adopting extreme tempos; period instrument sonorities refresh even that over-exposed Wedding March."

— BBC Music Magazine

This 1994 recording of most of Mendelssohn's incidental music from Ein Sommernachtstraum coupled with his Fingal's Cave Overture was one of Philippe Herreweghe's first with the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, one of the first French romantic period instrument orchestras, and it was almost but not quite a success. While the Orchestre's sound is fresh and appealing with characterful winds, warm brass, and sweet strings, it is also an odd and sometimes ungainly sound with perhaps overly pungent clarinets and bassoons, possibly overly raw horns and surely occasionally scrappy strings.