The Hebrides (overture) retains this position to the present day. Mendelssohn's first visit to England in 1829 resulted from invitations by Sir George Smart and the Philharmonic Society. Following his tour of England, Mendelssohn proceeded to Scotland, where he began work on his Symphony No. 3, "Scottish". He was engaged on a tour of Scotland with his travelling companion Karl Klingemann when he sent a postcard to his family with the opening phrase of the overture written on it. In a note to his sister Fanny, he said: "In order to make you understand how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, I send you
Overture poem, a form devised by Franz Liszt in several works that began as dramatic overtures. The distinction between the two genres was the freedom to mould the musical form according to external programmatic requirements (Temperley 2001). The symphonic poem became the preferred form for the more "progressive" composers, such as César Franck, Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin, and Arnold Schoenberg, while more conservative composers like Anton Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Arthur Sullivan remained faithful to the overture. In the age when the symphonic poem had already become popular, Brahms wrote his "Academic Festival Overture", Op. 80, as well