Symphony No. 4

At a glance

• What it isthe third movement of Symphony No. 4, a minuet-like piece marked Con moto moderato, with moderate motion.
• Who, when, whya movement of the symphony conceived on his Italian journey and completed in 1833.
• What to listen forthe strings' gentle melody and the sound of horns and bassoons in the middle section.

Listen for

• Swayingthe strings begin by singing a soft, graceful melody. It is a dance in three, but it does not hurry.
• Forest soundsin the middle section the horns and bassoons step forward with a gentle, signal-like melody, and violins and flutes answer with a sparkle.
• The returnthe opening melody comes back, and near the end the horns of the middle section are heard once more from afar.

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.

Some listeners say this third movement recalls less the sounds of Italy than the forests and horns of the Germany where Mendelssohn grew up, an interpretation in which the sound of home is heard even under the sun of a foreign land. The symphony was published only in 1851, after his death.