Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Overture to Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

The Magic Flute is one of several masterpieces composed in Mozart’s final year, 1791. That same year he composed his final Piano Concerto, the Clarinet Concerto, Ave verum corpus, and the opera La clemenza di Tito. In this opera, a noble prince is ordered by the Mysterious Queen of the Night to rescue a beautiful princess who’s been kidnapped. The overture starts with three majestic chords said to symbolize three knocks at the temple door as part of a Masonic ritual. The allegro fugue that follows alludes to the joyous, lighter world of the opera’s characters Papageno and Papagena. The number three occurs throughout the opera. There are three ladies, three boys, three priests, and three slaves. The key of the overture also has three flats.

Felix Mendelssohn Works from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mendelssohn originally composed the overture as a piano duet in 1826 for a performance at his family’s home. He was 17 years old. The opening seems to say “Once upon a time…” and paints the scene of the magical forest and the young lovers. You can even hear the sounds of Bottom, the character who is given the head of a donkey. The remaining movements of this suite were composed 17 years after the overture, for the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV. 

The Scherzo serves as an intermezzo between acts I and II and transports us to Shakespeare’s fairy world. The movement features technical passages by the woodwinds and a closing flute solo. 

The Nocturne closes Act III, when Puck has the 4 lovers sleeping where they will wake up and fall in love with the right person. 

Perhaps Mendelssohn’s most famous piece, the Wedding March, serves as an entr’acte between Acts IV and V. The use of trombones emphasizes that we have left the world of the fairies and are back in the world of humans and daylight.

Jean Sibelius Symphony No. 3 in C major, op. 52

The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements composed in 1907. Coming between the romantic intensity of Sibelius's first two symphonies and the more austere complexity of his later symphonies, it is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece. The symphony's first performance was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society, conducted by the composer, on 25 September, 1907. In the same concert, his suite from the incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, Op. 51, was also performed for the first time. It is dedicated to the British composer Granville Bantock, an early champion of his work in the UK.