Direct from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Wendy Eathorne (soprano)
BBC Singers (women's voices) director John Poole
BBC Symphony Orchestra, leader Eli Goren, conducted by Bernard Haitink

Sir Lennox Berkeley says:
'Two youthful works in this Prom. Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream was written when he was only 17, and it is certainly an example of precocity. Yet it is much more than that, for it retains an appealing freshness, together with a mercurial quality which will, one feels, forever remain connected with the play in people's minds. Webern's Passacaglia, Op.1, was written before he adopted the atonal system he used in the music for which he is best known. Though he had already begun his studies with Schoenberg when he started this piece, he was still writing music here that was influences - structurally at any rate - by late 19th century models.'

Mendelssohn Incidental Music: A Midsummer Night's Dream