When some of the most prominent musicians of the day explained to Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s father that his son was a musical genius, no expense was spared to further his artistic education. Among other things, he was sent on a trip to “find himself as a person and an artist.” The journey resulted in several works that convey his impressions of the people and surroundings he encountered.

One of his first stops was in Scotland. After a visit to Holyrood Palace, where Mary Stuart once lived, he wrote home: “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 shine in. I think I have found there at the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony.”

Louise Farrenc was a great admirer of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, as we can hear in her melodically beautiful, yet sincerely passionate First Symphony. She was a prominent name onthe nineteenth-century French music scene. She was a composer and also a brilliant concert pianist, as well as a professor for thirty years at the historic conservatory in Paris, where she had previously studied under piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles, who also taught Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

Italian conductor Antonello Manacorda is the Artistic Director of Kammerakademie Potsdam since 2010, noted for a series of award-winning recordings. He studied conducting with Jorma Panula, and worked alongside Claudio Abbado for many years. This concert marks his debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.