Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads the LSO and his Monteverdi Choir in a concert marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and exploring some of the greatest music inspired by his writing. The concert begins with the youthful exuberance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 1, composed in 1824 when Mendelssohn was just 15 years old. Two years later, Mendelssohn, who adored Shakespeare’s writings, composed his concert overture based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The overture was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece and, many years later, he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by the King of Prussia to provide a score for an entire production in 1843.