A cheery postcard from a Scottish holiday full of evocative detail and concluding with a tantalisingly ambiguous ending

Mendelssohn’s musical postcard to the Hebrides inspired by a trip there during in 1829 tour of England and Scotland. A cheering melody gets tossed around the landscape and the tempestuous seas in this ten minute concert opener.

It’s titled an overture but it’s not strictly an introduction to anything, more a series of scenes or moods. Sometimes calm, other times bracing, this is textbook orchestral writing from Mendelssohn with lots of industrious string players tackling a lots of notes in a short space of time. There’s a grotto-like fairies and pixie dust feel to Mendelssohn’s writing sometimes which works particularly well here in conjuring up ‘Fingal’s Cave’.

The name is believed to be an anglicisation of the Gaelic name of the legendary castle Fion na Gael situated on the uninhabited island Staffa, off the west coast of Scotland. Listen out for the mournful clarinet solo creating a delicious moment of stillness. The ambiguous ending is tantalising.