Felix Mendelssohn – Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Analysis)

Enchanted moonlit forest with a glowing floral arch and fairies, inspired by Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.
Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” begins in the enchanted forest of Shakespeare’s comedy, then carries its brilliant brass call from theatrical celebration into the public ritual of the wedding ceremony.

Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” announces itself in a few unmistakable bars. The brass sound a bright, measured call, and the orchestra turns it into music that seems made for a procession. To many listeners, those opening notes mean a wedding. Mendelssohn first wrote them for the theatre, however, at the point where the tangled love affairs of Shakespeare’s comedy have finally been resolved. The distance between the march’s stage origins and its later place in wedding ceremonies gives the piece a richer history than its familiar opening might suggest.

Mendelssohn had entered the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream long before composing the march. In 1826, while still a teenager, he wrote the independent concert overture, Op. 21. Roughly sixteen years later, he returned to Shakespeare’s play to provide music for a stage production. This time, his score had to live alongside spoken lines, changes of scene and the pace of a performance. The “Wedding March” belongs to that later incidental music, Op. 61; the youthful overture was brought into the production with a history of its own.

The score places the march after Act IV and before Act V. Its position matters. Theseus has announced the marriage of the three couples, while the play still has its celebrations and the craftsmen’s performance ahead of it. The music stands at the threshold between the resolution of the lovers’ troubles and the comedy’s playful close. It was never conceived as the final sound of the play.

Across its few minutes, Mendelssohn does more than sustain a splendid opening. He establishes the principal theme, leads the music away from it twice, and brings it back with renewed force. Shifts in texture and orchestral colour make each return audible as an event. By the time the march reaches its emphatic ending, its brilliance has been earned through the journey.

Movements / Structure

The “Wedding March” is a single orchestral piece, rather than a sequence of movements. Its Allegro vivace marking, 4/4 metre and C major tonality establish a lively ceremonial character. The principal theme returns between contrasting passages, giving the work an outline that can be heard as A–B–A–C–A, with an extended close. This is a useful listening map, though the returns themselves gather different weight as the piece unfolds.

The opening presents the material the listener is most likely to remember. A first contrasting passage loosens its imposing steadiness through greater movement in the orchestral texture and a change in harmonic direction. When the main theme returns, recognition becomes part of the experience: we know its sound, but we have also heard how much the musical space around it can change.

A second departure opens onto a gentler, more melodic region. From there, the music finds its way back to C major and to the brilliance of the beginning. Strong orchestral chords bring the march to a decisive close. Because the piece is short, these changes carry considerable expressive weight; each new colour prepares the next appearance of the familiar theme.

Musical Analysis

A call that sets the music in motion

The opening has the clarity of a signal. The brass project the march’s characteristic phrase, and a firm pulse takes hold before another idea can draw attention away from it. Listeners need not count the beats to feel the procession: accented arrivals and short rhythmic impulses give the orchestra a sense of direction.

The opening statement in C major draws strength from clear phrases and firm harmonic foundations. Its immediacy helps explain why the march is so readily recognised. The theme is easy to retain after a single hearing, while its orchestration makes it seem larger than the melodic line alone. Rhythm, harmony and instrumental colour work together to create its splendour.

There is movement between the strongest statements, too. Strings and woodwinds sustain the flow and fill out the answering phrases, so that the brass call never remains an isolated fanfare. The music keeps travelling. That forward motion is essential to a piece written for a particular moment within a theatrical performance.

Beyond the opening theme

In the first contrasting passage, attention moves away from the full force of the opening and towards the activity of individual instrumental lines. The harmony seeks different points of support, and the texture becomes less dense. The procession continues, though its progress feels lighter for a while.

The return of the opening material restores familiar ground. Mendelssohn can now rely on the listener’s memory: the theme needs no second introduction. Heard after a contrasting passage, it carries a stronger sense of arrival. This alternation keeps the march alive as music, beyond the immediate impact of its first few bars.

The next departure offers another kind of respite. The melodic line opens out, and the orchestra leaves more room for a softer expression. For a moment, the public celebration seems to make space for something more intimate. This is one way of hearing the change in sound, rather than a character or incident explicitly depicted in the score.

The scale of these passages is carefully judged. Neither becomes a long episode that draws the piece far from its course. Each alters our expectations just enough. As the opening call approaches again, its return gains force from the changing perspectives through which we have heard it.

Return and conclusion

In the final stretch, the familiar theme moves back to the centre of the orchestral sound. Its reappearance gathers up what has come before: the opening rhythmic drive, the changes of colour and the moments when the music spoke with less weight. The last culmination feels like an arrival because the route towards it has been audible.

Mendelssohn closes the march with strength and clarity. The orchestra completes its course in full ceremonial voice. That decisive ending allows the piece to stand convincingly on its own, even as its original place remains within a much larger theatrical score.

The Theatre in the Orchestral Sound

Orchestration gives the march its public presence. Brass instruments carry its most recognisable statements; the strings keep its inner movement alive; and the woodwinds help shape the changes of colour. Timpani and percussion add weight where the procession grows most imposing. The original scoring also includes an ophicleide, a low brass instrument of Mendelssohn’s time that points to the historical orchestral sound for which the music was written.

This range of colour helps explain both the effectiveness of the first phrase and the richness of what follows it. Mendelssohn can present a collective, celebratory sound, then let smaller instrumental groupings change our sense of space. When the full brilliance returns, we have heard its quieter degrees as well.

The march’s later life in weddings is closely associated with organ performances. Here, though, the work under discussion is Mendelssohn’s orchestral original. An organ arrangement can preserve its notes and broad course, while necessarily recasting the exchanges between orchestral families. Hearing the two side by side reveals how much of the march’s character resides in its instrumentation.

A Celebration Still in Progress

The title “Wedding March” may invite us to picture a bride entering a church. Its place in Shakespeare’s play tells another story. After the night’s misunderstandings, transformations and unsettled desires, the couples’ relationships find their way towards resolution. The march sounds as the action moves towards the final act, with the court’s festivities and the craftsmen’s performance still to come.

That setting lends the imposing music a measure of theatrical playfulness. Celebration does not bring the comedy to a halt; it gives it another stage. The march can sound magnificent while the audience knows that the earnest, awkward craftsmen are waiting to present their play. Ceremony and humour share the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and both can remain in our minds when we hear the piece today.

The march would acquire a second life beyond the theatre. Its new listeners did not always know Theseus, Hippolyta or Bottom. They could still hear, in its lucid opening and assured conclusion, music suited to a moment when a ceremony turns towards celebration.

🪶 A Chapter in the Life of the Work

From the Potsdam stage to a royal wedding

In Potsdam in 1843, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was preparing to take the stage with new music by Mendelssohn. He had known the play since his youth: the concert overture he wrote in 1826 had already begun a life in performance of its own. Now, in a production associated with Ludwig Tieck, he had to think of music as a companion to actors and action. Acts end, scenes change, and the characters return from the forest. At the close of Act IV, with the lovers’ troubles settled, the march enters. Mendelssohn’s incidental music was first performed in the production on 14 October 1843.

The march was able to travel beyond that stage. Its opening phrase had the definition that lets a piece remain recognisable when heard apart from the work that gave it birth. Years passed; settings and audiences changed; the theatrical march found its way into real weddings. The best-known turning point came in London fifteen years after the premiere, at an occasion watched well beyond the walls of its chapel. The wedding of 1858 greatly advanced the march’s public association with marriage, though the evidence does not establish it as the first wedding where the piece was played.

On 25 January 1858, Victoria, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter and known within the family as Vicky, married Frederick William of Prussia in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace. The queen was there, and her journal preserves a view of the day far more personal than the formality of a royal ceremony might suggest. She recalled her own nervousness and her daughter’s composure. She remembered Vicky kneeling beside Fritz, their hands joined, the long train of her gown held by eight young women. The queen also painted her daughter on her wedding day. Together, the journal and the watercolour preserve an occasion that was both a public event and an intimate change in a family’s life.

The order of the wedding music is often retold incorrectly. Sir George Smart, who was responsible for the chapel’s music, recorded that the bride entered to a march by Handel from Judas Maccabaeus, played by a band with side drums. Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” came at the end of the service, as the newlyweds left. Its position gave the music a particular meaning: it accompanied their departure together. A piece first placed between two acts of a comedy now followed a real couple out of a chapel and towards whatever their shared life would bring.

The day had another musical scene still to come. That evening, a concert at Buckingham Palace included music from Wagner’s Lohengrin, among it the “Bridal Chorus”. In later wedding traditions, the two famous pieces would often be associated with one another. On that January day, however, they belonged to different places and different hours: Mendelssohn accompanied the departure from the chapel, while Wagner’s music was heard at the evening concert. Keeping their order clear allows the documented events to tell their own story.

Nearly a century later, Mendelssohn’s march again stood at the close of a British royal wedding. On 20 November 1947, the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Philip at Westminster Abbey ended with the “Wedding March”. The service was broadcast by radio to listeners far beyond the abbey. From a theatre in Potsdam to a chapel at St James’s Palace and then to a ceremony heard across the world, the opening call continued to mark a departure. Each time, the people and the place around it gave the music another chapter in its life.

🎧 Listening Guide

A complete first hearing gives the march its natural momentum. On a second hearing, the following events offer useful bearings. Performances vary in length, so changes in the music are more reliable landmarks than timestamps.

  1. The opening brass call. The ceremonial character settles almost at once. The rest of the orchestra supports its pulse.
  2. The first departure. The sound becomes less densely packed. Movement continues, though the opening theme is no longer in the foreground.
  3. The theme’s first return. Its familiar sound comes back after a change of texture and carries a new sense of arrival.
  4. The gentler melodic region. Attention shifts from the firm processional pulse towards a more expansive line and the instruments surrounding it.
  5. The final return and close. The orchestral weight gathers again, carrying the march towards an unmistakably festive conclusion.

🎶 Further Listening

These three recordings all include the “Wedding March”. Heard together, they offer different contexts for the same piece. The opening fanfare, the space allowed to the contrasting passages and the weight of the ending make useful points of comparison.

  • Pablo Heras-Casado — Freiburger Barockorchester, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, harmonia mundi, HMM902724. This historically informed recording presents the march within an extensive account of the theatrical music. Its listed duration is 4:25.
  • Edward Gardner — City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn in Birmingham, Volume 4, Chandos, CHSA 5161. Chandos explicitly identifies the march’s position after Act IV. This modern symphonic recording provides a useful second perspective on its orchestral scale.
  • Otto Klemperer — Philharmonia Orchestra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Warner Classics. A historic orchestral recording offers a third perspective from which to consider the pace, the contrasts and the sense of arrival at the close.

📚 Further Reading

The story can be pursued in three directions: through Shakespeare’s play, Mendelssohn’s life and the later history of wedding music.

  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Acts IV and V are especially revealing for the march’s place between the announcement of the marriages and the celebrations that follow.
  • R. Larry Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music. A substantial study that places the youthful overture and the later theatrical score within the composer’s wider career.
  • Matthias Range, “Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ from Lohengrin and its Use as a Wedding March.” Although centred on Wagner, the article examines evidence from the 1858 wedding and clarifies when the two pieces were heard.

🔗 Related Works

These works lead back to Shakespeare’s stage, towards other music associated with weddings, and out into different musical images of celebration.

  • Felix Mendelssohn — “Scherzo” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61. Another part of the same theatrical score, animated by a strikingly different lightness and motion.
  • Henry Purcell — The Fairy Queen. A different musical and theatrical journey into a world drawn from Shakespeare’s Dream.
  • Richard Wagner — “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin. Its later association with wedding ceremonies makes it the closest historical companion to Mendelssohn’s march.
  • Edvard Grieg — “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen”, Op. 65 No. 6. A more personal image of celebration, originally written for piano.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — overture to The Marriage of Figaro. An orchestral opening alive with theatrical anticipation before another story of marriage and complications begins.

🎼 Closing Reflection

In its first life, the march belonged to a comedy with another act still to come. In its later lives, people heard it as a ceremony ended and a shared journey began. The score holds room for both experiences: the certainty of its festive sound and the motion towards whatever comes next.

📖 References & Sources

This article draws on score editions and catalogue records to establish the march’s position, form and instrumentation; on Shakespeare’s text for its dramatic setting; and on historical records and scholarship for its use at weddings. The account of 1858 follows Queen Victoria’s journal as presented by the Royal Collection Trust and the documentary research of Matthias Range. The available sample of the modern critical edition was used to check the march’s opening; it is not presented here as an examination of the complete volume.

Scores and work catalogues

  • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Musik zu „Ein Sommernachtstraum“ von Shakespeare, Op. 61, MWV M 13, No. 9, “Hochzeitsmarsch”. Critical edition edited by Christian Martin Schmidt, Leipziger Ausgabe der Werke von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Series V, Volume 8, Breitkopf & Härtel.
  • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Ein Sommernachtstraum, Op. 61, historical score edition edited by Julius Rietz, Breitkopf & Härtel, Series 15, 1874–1882.
  • Breitkopf & Härtel, publisher’s catalogue entry for No. 9, “Hochzeitsmarsch”, including duration and instrumentation.

Primary historical sources

  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, especially Acts IV–V, digital text from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
  • Queen Victoria, journal account of her daughter’s wedding, 25 January 1858; Royal Collection Trust, record for the watercolour Vicky at her Marriage. Chapel Royal Jan: 25. 1858., RCIN 980024.eq.

Musicological and historical studies

  • Matthias Range, “Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ from Lohengrin and its Use as a Wedding March”, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 148, no. 1 (2023), pp. 113–137.
  • Gary Jay Williams, “Madame Vestris’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Web of Victorian Tradition”, Theatre Survey 18, no. 2 (1977), pp. 1–22. The accessible documentation was used for the 1843 production associated with Ludwig Tieck.

Discography and institutional digital sources

  • harmonia mundi, catalogue entry for HMM902724; Chandos, catalogue entry for CHSA 5161; Warner Classics, catalogue entry for the recording conducted by Otto Klemperer.
  • The Royal Family, historical information on the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip, 20 November 1947.