Orpington Symphony Orchestra

Concert: Saturday 1st April, 2017 - 7.30pm

The Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, commonly known as the Italian is an orchestral symphony written by German composer Felix Mendelssohn, and inspired by his travels in Italy.

He wrote: "This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought... to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it. Today was so rich that now, in the evening, I must collect myself a little, and so I am writing to you to thank you, dear parents, for having given me all this happiness."

And In February he wrote from Rome to his sister Fanny: "The Italian symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. I have not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that I will save that for Naples."

The Italian Symphony was finished in Berlin on 13 March 1833 and he conducted the first performance himself in London on 13 May 1833 at a London Philharmonic Society concert. The symphony's success, and Mendelssohn's popularity, influenced the course of British music for the rest of the century. Mendelssohn himself, however, remained unsatisfied with the composition, which he said cost him some of the bitterest moments of his career. He revised it in 1834 and even planned to write alternate versions of the second, third, and fourth movements, but did not.

He never published the symphony, and it appeared in print only in 1851; thus it is numbered as his 'Symphony No. 4', even though it was in fact the third he composed.

The Symphony No. 99 in E♭ major, Hoboken I/99, is the seventh of the twelve London Symphonies (numbers 93-104) written by Joseph Haydn. The symphony was written in 1793 in Vienna in anticipation of his second trip to London. The work premiered on 10 February 1794 at the Hanover Square Rooms in London, with Haydn directing the orchestra seated at a fortepiano. It is the first of Haydn's symphonies to be scored for clarinets.

Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is Italian for Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; and usually referred to simply as Idomeneo. It is an Italian language opera seria by composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich.