The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, op. 26

Mendelssohn sailed to Staffa in August 1829 during a walking tour of Scotland and wrote the opening bars in a letter home the same day, before he had properly seen the cave from the water. He completed a first version in Rome in December 1830 under the title Die einsame Insel, then rewrote it, complaining that the middle section tasted more of counterpoint than of gulls and salt water. The revised overture was first played in London on 14 May 1832. It belongs to no play and precedes no opera: a concert overture, a piece of sea in sonata form. The first version, finished on 16 December 1830, was dedicated to the Prussian crown prince. When Mendelssohn reworked the piece in June 1832 he wrote Fingal’s Cave on the score and Hebrides on the parts. The same Scottish journey also gave him the first ideas for the Symphony no. 3, the Scottish.