Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Classical Music, Sunday 19 June 2016, 9pm

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Catherine Bott luxuriates in the music and madness of midsummer.

As we approach the summer solstice and the longest day, tonight Catherine Bott asks, “How has midsummer inspired composers?”

Of course, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream can never be far away and Catherine has incidental music composed for the play by Mendelssohn and by Walter Leigh, and Benjamin Britten’s opera version.

Hugo Alfven offers up a Swedish Rhapsody, subtitled 'Midsummer Vigil.'

And there are more seasonal sounds from Delius, Glazunov and Tchaikovsky.