A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) | Part 2

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The second part of a radio version of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night's Dream, arranged and produced in stereo by Raymond Raikes. It is nearly midsummer-night in 1970, and this may be one of the last chances to hear Shakespeare's fairy-comedy before it is reinterpreted by Kott and Brook. The music by the late Anthony Bernard was written for productions of the play at Stratford-upon Avon in the 1930s and re-orchestrated by the composer in 1943 for the Theatre Royal, Santiago, who had asked the British Council to recommend an English score to replace the over-familiar Mendelssohn music. A fragment of an Elizabethan melody 'Heartsease' is used with variations in the music for Oberon and Titania, and the music for the clowns is an old English folk tune.

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Access

Licence: ERA Licence required

Content
  • Type: Plays
  • Channel: BBC Radio 3
  • Duration: 01'06'49''
  • Broadcast date: 1970
Usage

UK only
Staff and students of licensed education establishments only
Cannot be adapted

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  • Shakespeare Archive Resource
Similar plays, poems and sonnets
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | BBC Radio 3 | 2021

Words and Music | Translation

William Shakespeare, trans. Prof. Mohamed Enani Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day (Sonnet 18) read by Islam Issa and William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | BBC Radio 3 | 1970

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970) | Part 1

The first part of a radio version of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night's Dream, arranged and produced in stereo by Raymond Raikes. It is nearly midsummer-night in 1970, and this may be one of the last chances to hear Shakespeare's fairy-comedy before it is reinterpreted by Kott and Brook. The music by the late Anthony Bernard was written for productions of the play at Stratford-upon Avon in the 1930s and re-orchestrated by the composer in 1943 for the Theatre Royal, Santiago, who had asked the British Council to recommend an English score to replace the over-familiar Mendelssohn music. A fragment of an Elizabethan melody 'Heartsease' is used with variations in the music for Oberon and Titania, and the music for the clowns is an old English folk tune.