This new recording features the following compositions by Mendelssohn:
- Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, with Jennifer Pike (violin)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream – incidental music, Op. 61, with
Rhian Lois (soprano I), Keri Fuge (soprano II), and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner conducting.
For this new recording of orchestral works by Mendelssohn, the CBSO and its principal guest conductor, Edward Gardner, join the violinist Jennifer Pike, who made a remarkable debut at Carnegie Hall this year.
The music of Mendelssohn is probably more highly valued and widely loved today than it has been at any period since his lifetime. Yet one still sometimes hears the allegation that he failed quite to fulfil the promise of those miraculous youthful masterpieces, the Octet, completed at 16, and the Concert Overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of a year later.
Here is Jennifer Pike in the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto: