Following a series of successful performances in London during his first visit to Britain in 1829, Felix Mendelssohn embarked on a walking tour of Scotland with his friend Karl Klingemann. On July 30, Mendelssohn visited the ruins of Holyrood Chapel at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, where, as he related to his family in a letter, he received his initial inspiration for what would become his Symphony No. 3:
In the deep twilight we went today to the palace where 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.
Alongside this description, Mendelssohn enclosed in his letter a scrap of paper with the opening bars of what would become the symphony's opening theme. The resulting work, Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, the "Scottish" was premiered on March 3, 1840, with composer conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In honor of the anniversary, we'll hear it performed by today's incarnation of that same orchestra—and will pair that with a vocal masterpiece by Brahms, also premiered on March 3 (in this case in 1870), inspired by poem of Goethe, itself based on a trek the celebrated poet made into Germany's rugged Harz Mountains during the winter of 1777, a portion of which would serve as the texts for Brahm's magnificent Alto Rhapsody.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday afternoon from 1 until 4 on Blue Lake Public Radio.
