Mendelssohn's Sketch, Mendelssohn's Symphony
"This is the mark of a true genius." So says conductor Riccardo Chailly about a quick sketch the 20 year-old Felix Mendelssohn made during a trip to Scotland in 1829. Mendelssohn kept that scrap of paper for 13 years, then finally used that idea as the opening of his Symphony No. 3, his "Scottish" Symphony. Riccardo Chailly talks about the connection between the sketch and the final symphony, and leads Mendelssohn's own orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in both the sketch and the finished version of the piece.