The Kammerakademie Potsdam, headed by Antonello Manacorda, received an Echo Klassik Award as the year's best orchestra for its complete recording of the Schubert symphonies. Now it is turning to a Mendelssohn cycle and has already received high praise for its recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4: “sparkling and vivacious,” wrote the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, “a sentient being with heartbeat that breathes and never stops moving”. Now these works are followed by Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5, which occupy a special place in Mendelssohn's oeuvre. The atmospheric and popular “Scottish” Symphony (No.3) has an autobiographical aspect in the form of the composer’s 1829 journey to Scotland, a place of longing much frequented by Central Europeans for its rugged landscapes, fog-bound seacoasts and legends of witches and sorcerers, all of which find their way into the music. Symphony No.5, often called the “Reformation” Symphony, was written in 1830 for the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. In the event, its performance had to be postponed owing to the pan-European revolutions of 1830, and the work did not receive its première until two years later.