In almost every respect this production is an ideal representation of Mendelssohn's music for Shakespeare's play, and it has a number of attractive and positive features. It has, however, just one drawback in the omission of the score's sixth number, marked Allegro, which contains about five minutes of music. It's true that these five minutes comprise merely a sequence of brief and sometimes repetitive orchestral comments, but they are still attractive, and the completist in me wishes they were there.
The hero of the occasion is Seiji Ozawa, who strikes what seems to me to be an ideal balance between conveying the underlying strength of Mendelssohn's writing and bringing out the music's wide-eyed freshness, its delicacy and its gentle, slightly teasing sense of humour. The Overture is played in quite a strong, clear-cut fashion, but there is a smile in the conducting too, and carefully observed detail. Some listeners might find the Scherzo a little too slow in tempo, but the playing (as throughout the disc) is of the highest quality, and Ozawa points the music very neatly and effectively. All the orchestral items are beautifully brought off, and the two famous soloists perform with great distinction, as does the chorus.
If Ozawa is the disc's hero then its heroine is Dame Judi Dench, who brings great character and wit to her spoken excerpts from Shakespeare's text. Her first entry comes unexpectedly and indeed somewhat jarringly over the end of the Scherzo, but in every other respect it is her contribution, and the setting of the music in its dramatic context, which finally lifts the issue above all other competition. Up till now I have recommended Masur's version for the inclusion of dialogue, but the excerpts on his Teldec disc are spoken in a German translation, which is less than entirely satisfactory, despite the presence of a printed translation. Masur's conducting is also a little less imaginative than that of Ozawa. DG include the English text and a German translation in their production, and the engineering throughout their disc is first-class.'