![Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861) - Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy [Hensel]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51753273512_9f3d6bdefb_b.jpg)
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
- Oratorium nach Bildern der Bibel (1831)
Performers: Ulrike Sonntag (soprano); Robert Wörle (tenor); Helene
Schneiderman (alto); Wolfgang Schöne (baritone); Stuttgart Philharmonia
Choir and Orchestra; Helmut Wolf (conductor)
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German composer, pianist and conductor, sister of the composer Felix
Mendelssohn (1809-1847). She was the eldest of four children born into a
post-Enlightenment, cultured Jewish family. Of her illustrious
ancestors, her great-aunts Fanny Arnstein and Sara Levy provided
important role models, especially in their participation in salon life.
Her paternal grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was the pivotal figure in
effecting a rapprochement between Judaism and German secular culture. In
Fanny Mendelssohn’s generation this movement resulted in the conversion
of the immediate family to Lutheranism. Despite baptism, however, Fanny
retained the cultural values of liberal Judaism. An important element
in the family circle was her special relationship with her younger
brother Felix. In close contact their entire life, they stimulated and
challenged each other musically and intellectually. Fanny played a major
role in shaping some of Felix’s compositions, notably his oratorio St
Paul (completed in 1837), and advised him on musical matters. Felix,
likewise, encouraged her compositional activities, but he discouraged
publication. Although his attitudes echoed his father’s views and
reflected the prevailing cultural values, they may have been motivated
by jealousy, fear of competition, protectiveness or paternalism. In any
case, these negative aspects exacerbated Fanny’s own feelings of
ambivalence towards composition. She depended on Felix’s good opinion of
her musical talents, as expressed in a letter to him of 30 July 1836,
where she speaks of a Goethe-like demonic influence he exerted over her,
and said that she could ‘cease being a musician tomorrow if you thought
I wasn’t good at that any longer’. But after Felix’s marriage in 1837,
their relationship became less intense. In 1846 Fanny embarked on
publication without her brother’s involvement, as she declared in a
letter of 9 July 1846 regarding a forthcoming project that became her
collection of Lieder op.1.
From 1809 Fanny Mendelssohn lived in Berlin. She received her earliest
musical instruction from her mother, Lea, who taught her the piano (she
is reputed to have noted her daughter’s ‘Bach fingers’ at birth). She
then studied the piano with Ludwig Berger, and in 1816 with Marie Bigot
in Paris. A few years later she embarked on theory and composition with
C.F. Zelter, a conservative musician and early champion of J.S. Bach.
Her first composition dates from December 1819, a lied in honour of her
father’s birthday. In 1820 she enrolled at the newly opened Berlin
Sing-Akademie. During the next few years Mendelssohn produced many
lieder and piano pieces; such works were to be the mainstay of her
output of about 500 compositions. On 3 October 1829 she married the
Prussian court painter Wilhelm Hensel. Their only child, Sebastian, was
born the following year (recent evidence shows that there was at least
one stillbirth). Beginning in the early 1830s, Mendelssohn became the
central figure in a flourishing salon, for which she created most of her
compositions and where she performed on the piano and conducted. Her
tastes favoured composers who were then unfashionable, including Mozart
and Handel, and especially Bach. Her only known public appearance was in
February 1838, performing her brother’s First Piano Concerto at a
charity benefit. Two trips to Italy, in 1839-40 and 1845, were among the
highpoints of her life. In Rome she formed a close relationship with
Gounod, who later noted Fanny’s influence on his budding musical career.
Her impressions of the first Italian trip are inscribed in Das Jahr, a
set of 12 character-pieces that combine musical and autobiographical
motifs. Her last composition, the lied Bergeslust, was written on 13 May
1847, a day before her sudden death from a stroke.
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