Felix Mendelssohn was born in 1809 in Hamburg, Germany and died in 1847 in Leipzig, Germany.

Mendelssohn was a child prodigy who became an accomplished composer, pianist, painter and conductor. When he set out on a tour of Italy at the age of 21, Mendelssohn had already written dozens of outstanding works, including twelve String Symphonies and Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream. He had also conducted a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Mendelssohn sketched out a symphony while he was in Italy, and this work would later become known as the “Italian” symphony. Even though the symphony was completed and performed during Mendelssohn’s lifetime, he refused to let the work be performed in Germany, and he would not allow the symphony to be published. Mendelssohn continued to make changes to the symphony right up until his death in 1847, when he was only 38 years old. After his death, Mendelssohn’s former teacher Ignaz Moscheles prepared the work for publication. Symphony no. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, ‘Italian’, was finally published in 1851.

The fourth and final movement of Symphony No. 4 is in the style of a Saltarello, a lively Italian folk dance.