The symphony was completed in Berlin. Mendelssohn wrote to Pastor Bauer, "My work about which I recently had many misgivings is completed, and, looking it over, I now find that, contrary to my expectations, it satisfies me. I believe it has become a good piece. Be that as it may, I feel it shows progress, and that is the main point." The score bears the date, Berlin, March 13, 1833.
The first performance from manuscript and under the direction of the composer was at the sixth concert of the Philharmonic Society that season, May 13, 1833. "The concerts of the Society were this year, and onward, given in the Hanover Square Rooms, which had just been remodeled. The symphony made a great impression, and Felix electrified the audience by his wonderful performance of Mozart's Concerto in D minor, his _cadenzas_ being marvels in design and execution. His new overture in C was produced at the last concert of the season."
Mendelssohn began to revise the symphony in June, 1834. On February 16, 1835, he wrote to Klingemann that he was biting his nails over the first movement and could not yet master it, but that in any event it should be something different--perhaps wholly new--and he had this doubt about every one of the movements. Towards the end of 1837 the revision was completed. Whether the symphony in its new form was played at a Philharmonic Society Concert in London, June 18, 1838, conducted by Moscheles, is doubtful, although Moscheles asked him for it. The first performance of the revised version on the European continent was at a Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, November 1, 1849, when Julius Rietz conducted. The score and orchestral parts were not published until March, 1851.
Grove remarked of this work: "The music itself is better than any commentary. Let that be marked, learned, and inwardly digested."
Reismann found the first movement, _allegro vivace_, A major, 6-8, to be a paraphrase of the so-called "Hunting Song" in the first group of _Songs without Words_. The tonality is the same, and this is often enough to fire the imagination of a commentator. The chief subject begins with the violins in the second measure and is developed at length. The second subject, E major, is for clarinets. The development section begins with a new figure treated in imitation by the strings. The chief theme is then used, with the second introduced contrapuntally. In the recapitulation section the second theme is given to the strings.