Italy!

An exuberant joie de vivre characterizes Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Symphony No. 4, which he began composing in Rome and Naples. Franz Schubert's budget never allowed a trip to Italy—but at least Italian opera was performed in Vienna. He supposedly bet his friends that he could compose overtures as lively as Rossini's, and subsequently created the overture "in the Italian style." Busoni's brilliant comedy overture also follows in the tradition...