Symphony No. 4

At a glance

• What it isthe first movement of Symphony No. 4, in A major, marked Allegro vivace, fast and lively.
• Who, when, whyconceived on the Italian journey Mendelssohn began at twenty-one and completed in 1833, at twenty-four.
• What to listen forthe glittering wind chords at the opening and the violins' high-leaping theme.

Listen for

• Sunlightover woodwinds tapping out the same chord in quick, fine notes, the violins present a theme that leaps high.
• A new themeclarinets and bassoons bring out a somewhat gentler second theme.
• Shade in the middlein the middle section, where the themes are developed, the music turns to the minor and a brief shadow falls as a new melody cuts in. Then the sunny first theme returns.

When it was written

From 1830 into the following year, the twenty-one-year-old Mendelssohn travelled through Italy. He toured Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples, sketching and listening to music, and wrote home that this symphony would be the merriest piece he had ever written.

The symphony was completed in 1833 on a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London, and he conducted its first performance himself that May. Yet Mendelssohn was never fully satisfied with it and kept revising it, and he did not publish it in his lifetime. The score appeared only in 1851, after his death, which is why it bears the number 4, after the Third, which he wrote later.