Dreams and Nightmares- Masterworks II

Shakespeare and James Agee provide the frame for three composers exploring the unstable border between innocence and unease— where memory blurs, beauty and darkness coexist, and imagination wanders freely. Anna Clyne draws on Macbeth as a springboard for her dramatic Sound and Fury; Barber turns to Agee to capture the nostalgia and quiet tristesse of a place long past; and Mendelssohn transforms A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its volatile mix of ominous spirits, lighthearted lovers, and slapstick comedy, into music of shimmering enchantment.