Symphony No. 3

At a glance

• What it isthe first movement of Symphony No. 3. It opens with a slow introduction, Andante con moto, and continues Allegro un poco agitato.
• Who, when, whyhe wrote down the first melody on his 1829 Scottish journey, but the symphony was not completed until thirteen years later, in 1842.
• What to listen forthe lonely melody of the introduction, and the moment it changes into the theme of the fast section.

Listen for

• Mistwoodwinds and violas sing a lonely, slow melody, the very one Mendelssohn wrote down at Holyrood.
• The galewhen the fast section begins, the same melody turns into a quick, uneasy theme, and the strings sway like wind.
• Stormnear the end the strings rise and fall by half steps as if a storm were sweeping through, and then the melody of the introduction returns and the movement ends quietly.

When it was written

Holyrood Palace was where Mary, Queen of Scots, once lived. In its ruins Mendelssohn thought of the queen's story and wrote down the melody that came to him there. On the same journey he visited the Hebrides and found the seed of his Hebrides Overture as well.

But the symphony did not come easily. After the Italian journey and busy years in Düsseldorf and Leipzig, it was completed only in January 1842. That March he conducted the first performance himself at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and he dedicated it to Queen Victoria of Britain. He asked that the four movements be played without a break.