PROGRAM NOTES

OVERTURE TO L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI (1813) Gioachino Rossini, 1792 - 1868 While the history of music is studded with youthful geniuses, few accomplished as wide or merry acceptance as Rossini. At the age of 21 he had written and produced a serious opera – Tancredi – that had all of Venice talking. In the same year, he achieved even greater and happier fame for the frolicking L'italiana in Algeri. Soon after its premiere, the opera was produced simultaneously in Venice, Brescia, Treviso, and Vicenza, an almost unheard of measure of success in those days.

The plot is pseudo-oriental in character, dealing with an Italian lady, Isabella, whose lover is imprisoned by the Bey of Algiers. Opera plots being what they are, it is not too difficult to guess the major outline from here on. Isabella goes to Algeria in disguise, causes the Bey to fall in love with her, and outwits him in accomplishing her lover's release with an assist from the favorite wife of the Bey.

The overture is sprightly in the style of the Italian opera buffa. Rossini's favorite device, a slowly rising crescendo to a tremendous volume, is well illustrated in this overture. He learned early that this could be relied upon to "bring down the house" – and it still does.

SYMPHONY NO. 4 IN A MAJOR, Op. 90, "Italian" (1833) Felix Mendelssohn, 1809 - 1847 Mendelssohn was barely twenty years old when he began a tour of Europe; following his visit to Scotland, where he conceived the initial ideas for the Hebrides Overture and "Scottish" Symphony, young Felix went to Italy -- falling completely under the spell of the country's warmth and color -- and was soon at work on his "Italian" Symphony. In a letter dated February 22, 1831, Mendelssohn wrote from Rome to his sister Fanny: "...The Italian Symphony is making great progress. It will be the most mature thing I have ever done. The last movement, Presto, will be the gayest. For the slow movement I have not yet found anything exactly right...." The actual composition of the symphony began amidst the sights and sounds of Rome and Naples in 1830 and was completed in 1833 under the gray skies of Berlin. Interestingly, the work actually caused the composer some great difficulties before it was finished. After the premiere in London on May 13, 1833, Mendelssohn felt that the work needed revising and did a major