Unlike Mozart beeing so surprisingly pleased with his “Haffner” Symphony, Felix Mendelssohn was ultimately NOT pleased with his Symphony No. 4 in A “Italian.” (1833). This is one of the most extraordinary stories in classical music because the “Italian” Symphony has been considered one of Mendelssohn’s many, many “perfect” compositions along with his String Octet (1825) and Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture (1826) with the subsequent Incidental Music (1842), and the Violin Concerto in E minor (1844).

As was the practice for scions of wealthy families (Mendelssohn’s father was a very successful banker), Mendelssohn was on a grand tour of Europe, including Great Britten and Italy, from 1829-1831. In Italy in Oct 1830, he wrote his father, “This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought ... to be the supreme joy in life.” 

He soon began composing the Italian Symphony. In February 1831 he wrote his sister Fanny (a great musician, composer, kindred spirit, and sounding board to her brother): “The Italian Symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. I have not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that I will save that for Naples.” 

The Symphony was completed in Berlin in 1833, having been commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London and performed there under the composer’s baton on 13 May 1833. By all accounts, it was a magnificent success, as confirmed by a review by a member of the Philharmonic Society after the premiere:

M. Mendelssohn's ["Italian" Symphony], composed in pursuance of a resolution of this Society … is a composition that will endure for ages, if we may presume to judge such a work on a single performance. The first movement, an allegro vivace, in A, without any slow opening, speaks at once the highly excited state of the author's imagination, and the fine flow of his animal spirits, when he wrote it, so full of brilliant conceptions is this, and so rapid their succession, that it would be a hopeless attempt to analyze it without either having heard it several times, or having the score to refer to. We may say the same of the finale, which has this peculiarity—that it is in the minor of the key in which the symphony commences. The slow movement in D minor is not less distinguished by ingenuity of a very rare description, and beauty of the most discernible kind, than by its undisputed, unquestionable originality: this was loudly encored. [emphasis added] The scherzo, in A, and trio, in E, shew [sic] genius of a high order in every bar. And, to be brief, the manner in which the whole work was received, by the most critical, the best qualified audience that London (now full of eminent foreign musicians) could assemble, bears us out in what we have said, and would justify us were we to add still more in praise of this masterly production.

A rave for posterity that most composers could only dream of! Yet, Mendelssohn was not pleased with his work. Mendelssohn revised the second through fourth movements in July 1834. 

He sent these revisions to Fanny who was not a fan:

Thank you for the Symphony movement that just arrived; it gives me great pleasure. I immediately played through it with Beckchen twice… I don’t like the change in the first melody at all; why did you make it? Was it to avoid the many a’s? But the melody was natural and lovely. I don’t agree with the other changes as well; however, I’m still not familiar enough with the rest of the movement to be able to render a reasonable judgment. Overall, I feel you are only too ready to change a successful piece later on merely because one thing or another pleases you more then. [emphasis added]. It’s always difficult, however, for one to become accustomed to a new version once he knows the old one. Bring the old version along when you come and then we can argue about it.

Fanny was not able to convince her brother to abandon his revisions and publish the Symphony as originally conceived. As a matter of fact, Felix was so unhappy with the first movement that he thought it should be completely recomposed. Yet he never took the time to do this. So, Mendelssohn never published the Italian Symphony! In one of the most fortunate quirks of classical music, the Symphony was published posthumously in 1851 in the original London version. (Mendelssohn died in 1847 at age 38 within months of Fanny’s premature death.) The revised movements are available in a recording and most listeners, (but certainly not all e.g., A. Peter Brown in his magisterial, multi-volume compilation The Symphonic Repertoire or Russell Steinberg, a contemporary Los Angeles composer and conductor, who heard our presentation on this subject), agree with Fanny that Mendelssohn’s first thoughts were his best. Since the above review already described the work, we will merely make one further comment. Mozart deliberately eliminated the repetition of his Haffner Symphony’s first movement exposition. Mendelssohn’s bridge music to his exposition repeat is unusually extensive and contains a theme that is otherwise only heard in the movement’s coda. 

Program Note by IPO Board 
Member Charles Amenta, M.D.