To Arrive in Italy

A pluck of pizzicato on the strings, a restless impatience of quavers in the woodwinds: the violins burst into an exultant melody. Blue skies in A major, Mediterranean light. This is how Mendelssohn, at the opening of his Symphony No. 4, captures the joy of arriving in Italy.

It was his father—perhaps recalling Leopold Mozart—who encouraged him to take the southern route. An initiatory journey: to cross the Alps from the cold Lutheran sun; to understand, as Goethe put it, the meaning of marble. Nothing is so enriching for a young man as awakening, alone, in a new city. It is October 1830, and Mendelssohn—barely twenty-one—writes from Venice with delight: “Italy at last! What I have longed for all my life as the greatest happiness has begun, and I rejoice in it.” The autumnal mists of the Giudecca, mystical and sensual, inspire two exquisite gondola songs dedicated to Delphine von Schauroth, the composer’s youthful, impossible love.

Spring greets him in Rome, after brief stays in Bologna and Florence. Rome the imperial—exuberant, festive, celebrating the arrival of a new pope. Transparent, radiant, bedecked; hiding in its corners and sunsets, flaunting itself in the nostalgia of its ruins and the majesty of its palaces. It intoxicates. The composer is not immune: he explores it with eager curiosity, reading Goethe’s Italian Journey as his companion.

It is there that he begins to write Symphony No. 4. A work full of life, fiercely youthful, a testament to those happy days: “The whole country had such a festive air that I felt like a young prince making a triumphant entry,” he would recall years later. Hence the contagious joy of the first movement and the fire of the final saltarello–tarantella.

Gone is the spiritual grandeur—the organ-like solemnity—of his previous Reformation Symphony, with its Lutheran melancholy, its Dresden Amen, its ascent to heaven. Mendelssohn now writes from a different light, a different ease, with a more human voice: his feet once again touch the earth. The austere northern god, all solemnity, yields to Bacchus.

In a letter to his sister Fanny, he wrote: “The Italian Symphony is making great progress; it will be the most cheerful piece I have ever composed, especially the last movement.” Yet he added, “I have not decided anything for the Adagio; I think I want to reserve it for Naples.”

Naples. For lack of better words, let Goethe speak: “As we approached, the air grew ever purer; we were indeed arriving in another land […] Here one no longer thinks of Rome; compared to Naples’ clarity, one pictures the world’s capital, in the deep valley of the Tiber, as an old, ill-situated monastery.”

The deep blue sea of the Gulf of Sorrento, the terribly beautiful silhouette of Vesuvius, Cape Minerva and, far in the distance, almost like a longing, the Isle of Capri. A vision of light: “Here one only wishes to live; one forgets oneself,” Goethe concludes. From Naples, Mendelssohn seems to have brought back a religious march—though some hear instead a Bohemian melody or even a song by his teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter. In any case, even in this more solemn second movement, the symphony never loses its spontaneity or carefree spirit.

Yet that spontaneity is deceptive: beneath it lies a polished, painstaking score that Mendelssohn revised repeatedly—before its London premiere in 1833, and even afterward. In vain, for he was never entirely satisfied with it.

This lack of conviction consigned the symphony to temporary obscurity. No matter. Time has rendered its verdict, and today we can only yield before it: before its formal perfection, its craftsmanship, and that irresistible joy with which Mendelssohn transports us, in an instant, to Italy—his rincón feliz, his happy corner.

For more than a century, countless interpretations of this symphony have appeared. Rather than list them all, I’ll mention only those I return to most often—each, in its way, capturing the work’s beauty and spirit.

Though Toscanini is an undisputed master of this repertoire, attention must be paid to his disciple Guido Cantelli, whose vigorous and technically brilliant recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Studio, 1955) offers an excellent introduction to the work.

Beyond the classic versions by Lorin Maazel (Berlin Philharmonic, DG 1962), Claudio Abbado (London Symphony Orchestra, DG 1984), and Leonard Bernstein (Israel Philharmonic, DG 1979), I recommend George Szell (Cleveland Orchestra, Epic 1963)—proof that technical precision and emotion can coexist.

Seeking warmer orchestral colours and a more Mediterranean tone, Riccardo Muti (New Philharmonia Orchestra, Angel Records 1977) delivered an exuberant, radiant reading—perhaps my favourite.

Finally, I must mention the superb recent complete symphonic cycle by Paavo Järvi (Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Alpha Classics, 2024). Under his baton, the Italian Symphony sounds fresh and renewed. Don’t miss the masterfully articulated final tarantella.

By Álvaro Portillo