Symphony

Italian Symphony

1 upcoming performance in New York

Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony is an early-Romantic travel portrait, shaped by the composer’s time in Italy and translated into quicksilver rhythms, bright orchestral color, and a final movement that draws on saltarello and tarantella dance steps. At NJPAC, violinist-conductor Joshua Bell leads the New Jersey Symphony, bringing a soloist’s ear for line to a score that depends on buoyant phrasing and clean articulation. In New York musical life, the symphony has long functioned as a repertory touchstone, a reminder of how 19th-century audiences heard “place” through sound. The writing is direct, almost classical, even when the pace turns restless.