Mendelssohn subtitled his Symphony No. 2 ‘The Hymn of Praise’. It was written to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the Gutenberg press in 1840 and first performed in Leipzig in that year. He intended it to celebrate German civilisation and the religious freedom spread by the invention of printing. With its conscious similarity to Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony, through its extended choral finale and its powerful ethical message, it was a very popular work in the nineteenth century. It contains much beautiful writing for both orchestra and voices and is undoubtedly a ‘hidden masterpiece’ by this major romantic composer.