Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847) was a German pianist and composer of the early Romantic era, and the older sister of Felix Mendelssohn. She wrote more than 450 pieces, from songs and piano miniatures to a string quartet, a piano trio and choral cantatas, yet published almost nothing under her own name until the last year of her life.
Her story takes in a famous painting, a royal mix-up and a Sunday concert series that drew the best musicians in Berlin. Here are 10 interesting facts about Fanny Mendelssohn that many people don't know.
The short version
Fanny Mendelssohn wrote more than 450 works, saw some of her songs published under her brother Felix's name, and only began publishing as herself in 1846. To hear why she matters, start with her Easter Sonata and the piano cycle Das Jahr.
1. Her mother spotted her gift at birth
1805 · Hamburg
Fanny was born in Hamburg on November 14, 1805, the eldest child of Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn. Lea was a keyboard player from a family that had helped keep Bach's music alive after his death, and she gave Fanny her first piano lessons. Looking at her newborn daughter, she is said to have joked that the baby had "Bach fugal fingers."
She turned out to be right. In 1819, at the age of 14, Fanny played all 24 preludes from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier from memory as a birthday present for her father. She and Felix went on to study composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter, the director of the Berlin Singakademie.
2. She waited eight years to marry Wilhelm Hensel
1821 to 1829 · Berlin
Fanny met the painter Wilhelm Hensel in 1821, when she was 16 and he was in his late twenties. Her parents, her mother above all, were against the match. Hensel had little money and an uncertain career, and he spent 1823 to 1828 working in Italy. During those years the couple were not allowed to write to each other directly.
When Hensel came back to Berlin with better prospects, and Fanny's feelings hadn't changed, her parents gave way. The couple married on October 3, 1829. Unlike most of her family, Hensel encouraged her to compose and, later, to publish her music.
3. She wrote her own wedding music
1829 · Organ
Start with: “Prelude in F major for organ”Her first organ works
Fanny had asked Felix to write the music for her wedding. A couple of weeks before the day, he was injured and could neither compose nor travel back to Berlin, so she wrote it herself.
She finished a processional, the Prelude in F major, a few days before the ceremony. Then, unable to find the score of the piece she had planned for the end of the service, she wrote a new postlude in G major the night before. They were her first pieces for organ, and the postlude was also her last.
4. She was the model for her husband's painting of Miriam
1836 · Royal Collection
In 1836 Hensel finished Miriam's Song of Praise, a large circular painting of the Old Testament story in which Miriam leads the Israelite women in song after the crossing of the Red Sea. Fanny posed as Miriam, the figure who stands for music in the Bible, with her sister Rebecka and sister-in-law Albertine beside her.
The painting was praised when it was shown in Berlin. In 1843 Hensel presented it to Queen Victoria, and it is part of the Royal Collection in Britain.
5. She ran one of Berlin's best concert series from her home
From 1831 · Berlin
Women of Fanny's class were not expected to perform in public, and her father told her that music could only ever be "an ornament" in her life. So she brought the public to her. From 1831 she ran the family's Sunday concerts, the Sonntagsmusiken, at their Berlin home.
She played, chose the programs and conducted a choir of around 20 singers, often in her own music. The audience grew to include Franz Liszt, Clara Schumann and the Humboldt brothers, which made her home one of the most important musical meeting places in the city.
6. She only published under her own name at 40
1846 · Op. 1
In 1826 and 1827, six of Fanny's songs were published in Felix's song collections, Op. 8 and Op. 9, under his name. For most of her life her family, Felix included, discouraged her from publishing as herself.
In 1846, at 40, she went ahead anyway, without consulting him. Her Op. 1, a set of songs, came out under the name Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and more sets followed. Felix wrote to send her his "professional blessing," though she noted in her diary that he wasn't happy about it deep down. She died the following year.
7. Queen Victoria's favorite "Felix" song was really hers
1842 · Buckingham Palace
Start with: “Italien”
In 1842 Felix was invited to Buckingham Palace, where Queen Victoria told him she would sing her favorite of his songs. She chose Italien, a setting of a poem by Franz Grillparzer.
The problem was that Felix hadn't written it. Italien was one of the songs by Fanny that had been printed in his Op. 8, and he had to confess to the queen that the song was his sister's.
8. She named her son after three composers
1830 · Berlin
Fanny and Wilhelm's only child, Sebastian Ludwig Felix Hensel, was born in Berlin on June 16, 1830. His three given names came from the composers who mattered most to the family: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and his uncle, Felix.
For his first birthday his mother gave him a cantata for soloists, choir and orchestra. Sebastian didn't become a musician. He worked as a landowner and businessman and wrote a well-known history of the Mendelssohn family.
9. She wrote more than 450 pieces
Songs, piano music and more
Start with: “Easter Sonata”More than 450 works
Fanny's catalog runs to more than 450 works, including over 250 songs, more than 125 piano pieces, a string quartet, a piano trio, an orchestral overture and four cantatas. Her best-known piano work is Das Jahr (The Year), written in 1841, a cycle of 12 pieces, one for each month.
Much of it went unpublished for over a century. Her Easter Sonata of 1828 was even credited to Felix when it was first recorded in 1970, and it was only confirmed as hers in 2010. Since the late 20th century her music has been published, recorded and performed far more widely.
Listen on SpotifyApple MusicRelated: 25 of the greatest female composers
10. She died suddenly during a rehearsal
1847 · Berlin
On May 14, 1847, Fanny was rehearsing Felix's cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night) at home for one of her Sunday concerts. She lost the feeling in her hands and had to stop playing. She had suffered a stroke, and she died that same day in Berlin, aged 41.
Felix was devastated. He wrote his String Quartet No. 6 in F minor in her memory and died less than six months later, on November 4, 1847, also after a stroke.
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Summing up
Fanny Mendelssohn grew up in one of the most musical families in Europe but spent most of her life composing for her family and friends rather than the public. Her Sunday concerts, her songs printed under Felix's name and her late decision to publish as herself tell the story of a major composer working around the limits of her time.
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