ABSTRACT
The "Scottish" Symphony can also boast a less glorious distinction: among Mendelssohn's mature large-scale instrumental works, it is practically the only one in which commentators—particularly in the present century—have consistently discerned a major flaw. This chapter argues that a clearer understanding of this coda may begin with an examination of the topos it invokes. A more refined interpretation of that topos, along with a better understanding of its associative function, suggests a revised view of the symphony's large-scale formal conception. Mendelssohn's earlier "Italian" and "Reformation" Symphonies remained unpublished—to say nothing of the twelve string symphonies of his youth—and none of these works became widely known in Germany before Mendelssohn's death. Mendelssohn's own difficulties in the genre most closely bound up with Beethoven's legacy reflect a condition endemic to the middle third of the nineteenth century, a period that produced only a handful of symphonies of this calibre. Mendelssohn often confessed a similar pessimism when it came to modern composition.
