In the South (Alassio)

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In the South (Alassio), Op.50 is a concert overture composed by Edward Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.

The subtitle "Alassio" is a town on the Italian Riviera where Elgar and his family stayed. He strolled around during the visit, while buildings, landscape and history of the town provided him the sources of inspiration. He later recalled:

Then in a flash, it all came to me - streams, flowers, hills; the distant snow mountains in one direction and the blue Mediterranean in the other; the conflict of the armies on that very spot long ago, where I now stood - the contrast of the ruin and the shepherd - and then, all of a sudden, I came back to reality. In that time I had composed the overture - the rest was merely writing it down.

The premiére of the work was conducted by the composer with the Hallé in 16 March 1904 in the last of three festival concerts of his own work at the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden.

Perhaps the best known part of the piece is the central melody "Canto Populare", played by solo viola. In July of the same year, Elgar took the "Canto Populare" section from the piece and fitted it to a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley as a song under the title In Moonlight, and later he made several instrumental versions.