In the summer of 1829, the German composer Felix Mendelssohn was touring Scotland. In the company of a friend from Berlin who held a post in London, Mendelssohn saw all the sights: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Inverness, Loch Lomond, and some of the Hebrides Islands. The two German tourists were not impressed by the food or friendliness of the somewhat surly natives, but they loved the Scottish scenery.

It’s very telling that they made a point of paying a courtesy call on the famous novelist Sir Walter Scott, whose Romantic historical tales of love and tragedy were wildly popular throughout Europe in Mendelssohn’s day. And very likely, it was through the Romantic filter of Scott’s novels that Mendelssohn and his friend viewed the Scottish landscape. On today’s date they visited the ruined castle of Mary Queen of Scots, and Mendelssohn wrote this letter to his family back in Germany:

“In darkening twilight today, we went to the Palace of Holyrood where Queen Mary lived and loved. The chapel has lost is roof and is overgrown with grass and ivy, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything there is ruined, decayed and open to the clear sky. I believe that I have found there today the beginning of my Scotch Symphony.”

Mendelssohn may have begun his “Scotch” Symphony on today’s date in 1829, but he didn’t finish it until about a dozen years later. And although the work is dedicated to “Her Majesty Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland,” the new symphony was premiered in Leipzig, under Mendelssohn’s baton, in March of 1842.