22 Facts About Fanny Mendelssohn

Fanny Mendelssohn was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was known as Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel.

Fanny Mendelssohn's compositions include a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, more than 125 pieces for the piano, and over 250 lieder, most of which went unpublished in her lifetime.

Fanny Mendelssohn grew up in Berlin and received a thorough musical education from teachers including her mother, as well as the composers Ludwig Berger and Carl Friedrich Zelter.

In 1846, despite the continuing ambivalence of her family towards her musical ambitions, Fanny Hensel published a collection of songs as her Opus 1.

Fanny Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, the oldest of four children, including her brother Felix Fanny Mendelssohn born four years after her.

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Fanny Mendelssohn was descended on both sides from distinguished Jewish families; her parents were Abraham Mendelssohn, and Lea, nee Salomon, a granddaughter of the entrepreneur Daniel Itzig.

Fanny Mendelssohn was baptised as a Christian in 1816, becoming Fanny Cacilie Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

Biography of the Mendelssohn family compiled from family documents by Fanny's son Sebastian Hensel has been construed by the musicologist Marian Wilson Kimber as intending to represent Fanny as having no aspirations to perform outside the private sphere.

Fanny Mendelssohn's works were often played alongside her brother's at the family home in Berlin in a Sunday concert series, which was originally organized by her father and after 1831 carried on by Fanny Mendelssohn herself.

Fanny Mendelssohn helped Felix by providing constructive criticism of pieces and projects, which he always considered very carefully.

In 1829, after a courtship of several years, Fanny Mendelssohn married the artist Wilhelm Hensel, and the following year gave birth to their only child, Sebastian Hensel.

Fanny Mendelssohn later had at least two miscarriages or stillbirths, in 1832 and 1837.

Wilhelm Hensel, like Felix, was supportive of Fanny Mendelssohn's composing, but unlike many others of her circle was in favour of her seeking publication of her works.

On 14 May 1847 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel died in Berlin of complications from a stroke suffered while rehearsing one of her brother's cantatas, The First Walpurgis Night.

Fanny Mendelssohn was buried next to her parents in a portion of the Dreifaltigkeit Cemetery in Berlin reserved for Jewish converts to Christianity.

Fanny Mendelssohn's compositions include a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, over 125 pieces for the piano, and in excess of 250 lieder.

The majority of Fanny Mendelssohn's compositions are limited to lieder and piano pieces as she felt her abilities did not extend to larger, more intricate compositions.

Fanny Mendelssohn was undoubtedly hampered by the fact that, unlike her brother, she had never studied or played any string instruments, experience which would have assisted her in writing chamber or orchestral works.

Larry Todd has pointed out that, although there has been much comment about the influence of Felix's music on Fanny Mendelssohn, both were strongly influenced by the later music of Ludwig van Beethoven in terms of form, tonality and fugal counterpoint.

Fanny Mendelssohn commonly used strophic form for her songs, and her piano accompaniments frequently doubled the voice-line, characteristics of the music of her teachers Zelter and Berger.

Commencing in the late 1980s, Fanny Mendelssohn's music has become better known, thanks to concert performances and new recordings.

Fanny Mendelssohn's collected letters to Felix, edited by Marcia Citron, were published in 1987.