Scherzo & Notturno

The incidental music for Mendelsshon's A Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61, contains truly immortal pages. Not only the famous Wedding March, but also the two compositions object of this new publication: the Scherzo, that is already part of the piano repertoire due to some magnificent transcriptions as the Rachmananinoff one that is used as the basis of this new one done by me, as well as the Nocturne (here once again the Moszkowski transcription for the piano served for my own version). These are pieces that I wanted to present in an organ version that could allow me, in addition to my colleagues, to perform them convincingly on the pipe instrument and then to make it accessible to all music lovers. While not a lover of the idea of transcribing a transcription, I thought that an exception was possible with Mendelsshon's two scores. The two already existing ones, the Rachmaninoff and the Moszkowski, prove to be very interesting under various aspects: the particular taste of the two composers, as well virtuoso performers, involved; the quite unusual musical creativity shown in the scores (the Notturno, by Moszkowski, shown from a certain moment a big distance from the orchestral score, but it is done with such a grace and wonderful taste that I decided to let it flows); the possibility of expanding the orchestral resources that these versions, quite in a "Black and White" mood to quote Charles Rosen ("Piano Notes: The Pianist's World", Free Press 2004), could resound in a new perspective.