This is Mendelssohn’s last symphony. You always want to know when things were written. It’s numbered wrong. He completed it five years before his death. Although he started working on it when he was much younger, he did not finish it until late in his very short life.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Frankfurt Radio Symphony

I. Andante con moto

II. Vivace non troppo (in F major)

III. Adagio (in A major)

IV. Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai (A minor – A major)

Total Time: 43:08

Instruments:

• two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in Bb and A, two bassoons
• two horns in C and A, two horns in E, F and D, two trumpets in D
• timpani
• strings

1st movement:

There is an unusually long intro, and in fact that intro is a huge part this movement. That’s important because this first movement is very long, almost 19 minutes long. That’s about twice as long as some of Mozart’s entire symphonies. And you will hear this again at the end of the movement.

At the end of intro, it’s really not agitated, at first. It’s just a little fast, more like allegretto, and very genial.The best conductors take this a bit on the slow side, very expressively and subtle because they can then speed up more.

Then we get to Assai animato: That’s precisely when the “agitato” part starts, and this is not normal at all. You don’t normally change tempo in this section. How to do it – and how much – is up to the conductor, but it needs to be pushed.

The 2nd cond theme changes to E minor, which is rather traditional, but very effective. A bit later he uses the circle of 5ths – Em F#7 F#ø B7 Bø E7.Eø A7/E  D# dim right back to Em. It is one double morph after another. Virtuoso slithering. This is a cliche for us, the musicians, just a totally predictable pattern, but the way he uses it is so fantastic. He’s getting ready to repeat the whole thing except the intro, so he has to get to E7 and he does, to repeat the expo.

Now the development. It’s play time. But C# minor? He just goes there, and it’s radical. That’s right out of Darth Vader, but this is 1842, not the latter half of the 20th century. Awesome move. Next there is a feast of diminished chords: Just as Dukas used augmented chords in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Mendelssohn here decides do do nothing but dim chords. This diminished sound and the music moving up and down is frequently used for storms.

And all this just scratches the surface.

2nd movement

This is a pretty short movement, and it’s famous. The move to F major is interesting because A minor to C major is the default move, but I like F major better because it’s a one note morph, Am to F major. Only one note moves, very smooth. This movement  provides a great contrast with the long, serious 1st movement. there is a debate about whether Mendelssohn considered this symphony in any way “Scottish” by the time he was finished with it,  and that name was not his. But this movement definitely has the Scottish sound.

3rd movement

This time the move from F major to A major is a double morph, so very slick and very smooth. Even though the movement is listed as major, it spends a lot of time in minor, and that gives it a very serious feel. This is a fairly long movement, around 12 minutes long.

4th movement

Finally, the finish. No matter how good a symphony is, if the last movement is a disappointment, so his the whole symphony. The greatest composers either saved the best for last, or they saved something special for the ending. There is no disappointment here. It’s a great ending to a great symphony. Some thing the major and very upbeat ending was a bit of a cop-out, but I like it.

Score link:

The link is HERE, and it’s really easy to follow. I don’t like this recording as well, though it is very good, but it is invaluable for following along with the music. I downloaded the score, but it’s unreadable and impossible to follow on a computer screen. I thought of linking the music to this score, but the video was just more fun to link to.

It took a very long time…

Mendelssohn was initially inspired to compose this symphony during his first visit to Britain in 1829. He wrote:

“In the deep twilight we went today to the palace were Queen Mary lived and loved…The chapel below is now roofless. Grass and ivy thrive there and at the broken altar where Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything is ruined, decayed, and the clear heavens pour in. I think I have found there the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony.”

Mendelssohn continued to work on his initial sketches of what would become Symphony No. 3 while touring Italy. However, he struggled to make progress, and after 1831 he set the piece aside.

He may have returned to the first movement in the late 1830s, but he  did not complete the symphony until 1842.

The last symphony, not the 3rd…

It was the third to be published, and has subsequently been known as Symphony No. 3. But it’s important to know that it’s the real 4th symphony, and often last symphonies are the best. That would be my evaluation here.There is a 5th symphony with a number, but that’s all a mistake, because that composition is actually a sacred choral work with 13 sections.