Mendelssohn and Prince Albert

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On this date in 1842, Felix Mendelssohn presented himself at Buckingham Palace in London as the invited guest of Queen Victoria and the royal consort, Prince Albert. In 1842, Victoria was not the plump matron so familiar from later portraits, but a slim woman of 23. Elegant Prince Albert, a fine amateur musician and composer of some charming songs, was the same age. Mendelssohn himself was 33, although the 20-something Queen wrote in her diary that she thought he looked “a bit older.”

Mendelssohn played some of his Songs Without Words and improvised on “Rule Britannia” and the Austrian National Anthem. Victoria and Albert were impressed, so Mendelssohn was invited back for more visits.

Victoria presented him with a ring engraved “V.R. 1842”—the initials standing for “Victoria Regina.” In return, Mendelssohn dedicated to her his newly completed Symphony No. 3, the Scottish Symphony, a work he had begun many years earlier during a walking tour of Scotland during his first visit to Britain. Curiously, although this Scottish Symphony was the fifth and final of Mendelssohn's symphonies to be completed, it was the third to be published, and so has subsequently been known as Symphony No. 3.

Music Played in Today's Program

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Symphony No. 3 (Scottish); London Symphony Orchestra; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor; LSO 765