'I feel that with each work I get closer to learning how to write what I feel in my heart, and in the end that is the only guiding principle I know.' So Felix Mendelssohn initmated in a letter to the Leipzig Gewandhaus concertmaster Ferdinand David, with whom he had consulted on compositional details, and who gave the work's premiere. Mendelssohn transforms the concerto form, letting the violin begin immediately with the main theme, placing the first movement's great cadenza at the end of the development and connecting the movements together, with a brilliant elves’ spell as a finale. Even the so-called 'Italian' astonishes with its well-known jubilant opening, its antiquated minuet and saltarello folk dance at the end - the only classical-romantic major-key symphony with a minor-key finale! Soloist Julian Rachlin and the exceptional Italian conductor Daniele Gatti, making his first appearance with the Wiener Symphoniker, will savour the evening's passions and subtle nuances.

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