Mendelssohn is the most classical of romantic composers. His music has all the clarity of Mozart, coupled with the feeling proper to his own later generation. The son of a well-to-do banker, he enjoyed many material and cultural advantages, including the opportunity to travel. The so-called Scottish Symphony was inspired by a visit to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh and by the ideas it conjured up, the tragic history of Mary Queen of Scots, dramatised by the German poet Schiller. The Hebrides Overture recalls, a voyage that took him to the Hebrides and to Fingal's Cave, the natural grandeur of the scene recaptured in music. The other two overtures on our selected disc are literary in origin. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage echoes a poem by Goethe, while Ruy Blas introduces the play by Victor Hugo.
Recommended recording
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 "Scottish", Hebrides, Calm Sea & Prosperous Voyage & Ruy Blas Overtures, with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra under Oliver Dohnányi.
Naxos 8.550222
