While Mendelssohn valued Goethe’s poetry above all other literary forms, he picked apart Victor Hugo’s tragedy Ruy Blas. However, this did not stop him from composing an overture to it for a charitable cause and in response to an urgent request. For a repeat performance he perhaps only half in jest entitled it “Overture for the Theatre Pension Fund” instead of using the original name.

In The First Walpurgis Night the heathen inhabitants of the Brocken are ordered to come armed with pitchforks in “Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln” and to give Christian missionaries a good fright in the riotous howling of the “Rundgeheule”.

The young Mendelssohn set Goethe’s highly allusive ballad as a furious tone painting situated between the symphony and the choral ballad and magnificently bringing out the fine humour of this German Prince of Poets.

Along with three concert overtures, The First Walpurgis Night now concludes the Musikkollegium Winterthur’s highly acclaimed MDG Mendelssohn cycle under its principal conductor Douglas Boyd.

The First Walpurgis Night is a highly topical argument in favor of religious tolerance; the soloists and Singakademie of Zurich seem to have splendid fun with this opulent musical magic!