Tribute to Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

As we begin the celebration this year of the 200th birthday of Fanny Mendelssohn, we will begin by placing her in a time line of history. She was born in Hamburg, Germany on November 14, 1805. In the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson was about to begin his second term as President. Napoleon was crowned as King of Italy in the Milan Cathedral. The poet Hans Christian Anderson was born. The scientist F.W.A. Sarturner, isolates morphine. Goya had painted his famous portrait, "Dona Isabel Cobos de Procal" and Turner had finished "Shipwreck". Paganini's European tour as a violin virtuoso began. Rockets were introduced as weapons into the British army.

When Fanny was born, the most famous composer alive was Ludwig van Beethoven, age 35. Chopin and Schumann were born in 1810. Franz Liszt was born in l811. Clara Schumann was born in 1819 and would become a good friend of Fanny Mendelssohn and even perform in her home. Mozart had died 14 years earlier and J.S. Bach had been dead for 55 years.

Fanny was the oldest of four children. She was four years older than her famous brother Felix. Fanny and Felix would remain close throughout their lives. They were probably the closest brother and sister in history. For growing up in such wealth, they remained very disciplined and worked very hard at what they both loved…music. They composed and performed at a young age being fortunate to have a concert hall and an orchestra in their home. Guests at their home were the most elite, educated and famous in Germany. They both got up at five in the morning and studied together. Often Fanny would begin composing a piece and Felix would finish it. As a child Felix knew the nine Beethoven symphonies by heart and could play them on the piano When Fanny was thirteen she had memorized twenty-four Bach Preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Their younger sister Rebecka was a good singer and the youngest brother Paul, was an excellent cellist .

This was a close-knit talented family. The famous pianist Ignaz Moscheles in 1824 reported, "This is a family, the like of which I have never known. Felix, a boy of fifteen, is a phenomenon."

Both Fanny and Felix began piano lessons with their mother, Lea. In 1816 they studied with Marie Bigot in Paris. Beethoven was so impressed with Marie's reading of his Appassionata sonata, he gave her the manuscript. Fanny and Felix studied with the best teachers.They took lessons with Ludwig Berger in Berlin who had studied with Clementi. Felix and Fanny studied theory and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter beginning in 1818. Zelter considered Fanny his prize student and boasted to Goethe in 1824 of her accomplishment of having composed 32 fugues.

At this point in Fanny's life, she was discouraged from considering music as a profession. She performed in private circles but because she was a member of the Berlin upper-class , it was taboo for her to become a published composer. She was to get married and have children and fit into society. On the other hand, Felix was encouraged to become a concert pianist and published composer.

Marcia Citron, the musicologist who translated Fanny's letters, records 279 letters written to Felix from Fanny during their lives. The letter writing began when Felix left on his first trip abroad with his father to get the opinion of Felix's talent. Fanny was sixteen at the time. She wrote on October 1821,"I miss you from morning till night…and the music especially will not flow without you."

The following year Abraham Mendelssohn decided to take his entire family to Switzerland. The previous year had been difficult, their fifth child had died at birth, The family left on July 6, 1822 along with the tutor and a few servants. Fanny especially enjoyed seeing valleys, glaciers, sunrises and Alpine bells. Fanny wrote to her friend Marianne, "I entered God's great Nature, my heart trembled with terror and respect; I grew calm again and was observing, on the Italian border, the finest, most gracious, and pleasant scene that man can imagine when destiny cried out to me; so far, and no further! Never, ever have I felt such gratitude toward God, who allowed me to experience this day."

Fanny would marry Wilhelm Hensel who she had met when she was fifteen. He was a painter. He attended the coronation of Queen Victoria and was commissioned to paint her family portraits.. Wilhelm painted portraits of Fanny and the whole family to win their approval to marry Fanny. They were married on October 3, 1829. Felix had injured his knee and was unable to be at the wedding. He had promised to compose a recessional for the ceremony but was not able to. Fanny ended up composing an organ piece in G Major the night before the wedding staying up till 12:15 A.M.to finish this piece.

The marriage was a happy one. Fanny composed music at the piano every morning while Wilhelm painted. They had one son who was born June 16th, 1830 two months premature. He became a healthy little boy. Fanny named her son Sebastian after her favorite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Fanny continued to compose and was content to perform her pieces, conduct and accompany singers at the Sunday concerts. Usually there would be a hundred or more people in attendance. Jenny Lind , the Swedish nightingale, even performed at their Sunday concert.

Fanny performed one charity event outside their home in February of 1838. This was her only public concert. Fanny performed her brother's Concerto in G minor, Op.25.

Wilhelm continued to paint portraits of famous guests who came to the Mendelssohn home. Queen Victoria purchased "Miriam" with a ring Wilhelm gave to Fanny, who thought it "madness to wear seven or eight thousand thalers on one's finger."

Fanny always needed her brother's approval and he had always forbid her to publish her music. Year's ago Fanny's father had written her a letter that stated she must not even consider a career in music, that her place was to be a wife and mother. Her husband however, had encouraged her to continue composing and even have her works published. . Finally, on August 14, 1846, Felix wrote to her and gave her his professional blessing to go ahead and have her works published.

That Winter Robert and Clara Schumann were in Berlin and visited the family. Fanny and Clara shared a Sunday musicale between them.

On March 15, 1847, Clara Schumann, the famous pianist, composer who was encouraged by her father to be a pianist and composer, wrote that, "I have really taken a liking to Frau Hensel and feel particularly drawn to her musically, we are almost always in accord, and her conversation is always interesting." She went on to say in her diary, "Women as composers cannot deny themselves as women, and I say this of myself as much as of the others."

On April 11th, Fanny opened the season by performing her Trio in D minor she composed for her sister's birthday. Her publisher was Bote and Bock and her compositions were appearing in print finally.

In January of 1847 critical reviews of Fanny's works began appearing in Robert Schumann's Leipzig paper he founded in 1835. The reviewer begins by remarking that the composer was a WOMAN. A comment from a review of Fanny's Op. 4 which appeared in March was, "The invention is neither striking nor new, but tasteful, pleasing, and free of the superabundance of feeling which is seemingly the dominant characteristic of our modern composers, thought not when they are women."

On Friday, May 14,1847 - the day of the review, Fanny had a serious nosebleed. Instead of taking a nap, she continued plans for the rehearsal that afternoon for the coming Sunday concert. She had her piano moved near to the open door of the garden room and began rehearsing the chorus. Suddenly her hands wouldn't do anything. Fanny went and soaked them in warm vinegar. Another pianist took over for her. She tried to play again only to have paralysis return to her hands. She said, "It's a stroke". Fanny lost consciousness entirely and died at eleven o'clock that evening.

That Sunday instead of a concert, Fanny's coffin was put on view in the garden room, covered with flowers. Wilhelm drew a final portrait of his wife, but was never again able to paint in his studio. He never finished his portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned by the Duke of Sutherland. Their son, Sebastian went to live with his aunt Rebecka.

There is a melody of a song Fanny composed the day before she died engraved on the marble tombstone in the cemetery. On either side of Fanny's tombstone there are white crosses which are on top of her brother on the left and her husband on the right side.

As we consider and become acquainted with the tremendous amount of music that Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel composed, I hope the world will realize and respect her talent. Also, we must admire Fanny for encouraging her brother and nurturing his talent while she played his works in humble admiration. Their competitive nature led both of them to compose and become great pianists. Felix, however was allowed freedom to perform in public, have his works published and travel everywhere, while his equally talented sister was sheltered and confined to her home and denied her desire to have her works published until she was forty years old. They say life begins at forty. But for Fanny, her life seemed much too short.

Sadly, Felix suffered a stroke when he heard of his sister's death and died six months later.