From Birmingham
In the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture you will hear: (1) Fairies (light, flitting music for the first minute or so); (2) Festal pomp; (3) The bray of an ass (Bottom, 'translated'). These are the three outstanding ideas from which this wonderful Overture glows. The work is famous for its fine quality, and for the fact that Mendelssohn wrote it before he was eighteen.