Mendelssohn Symphony, Concerto and Overture

Mendelssohn had been encouraged by his mentor Goethe and teacher Zelter to visit Italy, and did so in 1830. While in Rome he started composing a new symphony inspired by "the land of bright skies and warmth", and wrote to his sister in February of the next year that "the Italian symphony is coming on well: it will be the happiest piece I have yet composed." At the same time he writes that a Piano Concerto "I would like to write for myself for Paris, is beginning to whirl in my head ..."