Fanny Mendelssohn

Fanny Mendelssohn (later Hensel) was born in Hamburg as Fanny Mendelsssohn-Bartholdy, part of a highly cultured and intensely artistic family that traced its descent from the German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Fanny was a skilled composer and pianist from her early childhood, and the atmosphere in which she grew up in Berlin was filled with music, particularly that of her younger brother Felix (born 1809) with whom she formed a particularly close bond. Felix's gift grew to outshine Fanny's and he initially published several of her teenage songs under his own name. It was not felt respectable that a woman of marriageable age should be published, although when Fanny married the painter Wilhelm Hensel in 1829 he was supportive of her composing. She travelled extensively in Europe, meeting fellow-artists including Clara Schumann and Charles Gounod, and from 1846 she began to publish her songs and piano music – although only a fraction of her 450-plus composition was published before her sudden and untimely death in 1847. Since then, the scope and quality of her achievement has been continually reappraised; her Piano Trio (1847), String Quartet (1834), Easter Sonata (1828) and orchestral Overture in C major (1832) are all increasingly performed on their own, strikingly Romantic terms.