The Hebrides
The Hebrides Overture, "Fingal's Cave" by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Inspired by Mendelssohn's visit to the Hebrides islands off the west coast of Scotland, this overture (an independent, one-movement work) was revised many times by its composer and was premiered as Overture to the Isles of Fingal in London on May 14, 1832, when Mendelssohn was aged 24. Listen here:
The Hebrides, Scotland - the source of much Scottish Gaelic literature and music.
In 1829, the 20-year-old Mendelssohn visited Scotland with a childhood friend, Carl Klingemann. The two roved among the lakes and moors of the Scottish Highlands. Mendelssohn wrote colourful letters home about their adventures. He described the "comfortless, inhospitable solitude," which stood in stark contrast to the beauty and wilderness of the countryside. Here was a place very different from Berlin, where the young composer had grown up.
Fingal's Cave (Basalt Sea Cave), Staffa Island, Scotland
Mendelssohn loved Scotland and he was stimulated by its sights and sounds (Listen to his "Scottish Symphony" here). While on a ferry voyage in western Scotland, Mendelssohn was so struck by the misty scene and the crashing waves that a melody came into his mind, a melody with all the surge and power of the sea itself. In a letter to his sister Fanny, he wrote of how deeply he was moved and notated a few bars of the melody that he later used at the beginning of his overture.
Felix Mendelssohn - German composer, pianist, conductor and teacher (February 3, 1809 - November 4 1847)
Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn were very close, but in May 1847, Felix was greatly saddened by the death of Fanny (who also died on the 14th of May). The death of such a close relative, to whom he was so completely bound, was something that perhaps he could not live with, for after the death of his sister, his energies soon deserted him, and, following the rupture of a blood vessel, he soon died.
Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica
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