![]() ![]() I am very composed, Dear Felix, and your picture is next to me, but as I write your name again and almost see you in person before my very eyes, I cry.… Actually I've al ways known that I could never experience anything that would remove you from my memory for even one-tenth of a moment.… Your love has provided me with an inner worth, and I will never stop holding myself in high esteem as long as you love me. Later, when he left home to expand his musical horizons, she missed him desperately and wrote to him frequently on her wedding day, she wrote: She proved to be a much more gifted pianist than Felix, but took great joy in his accomplishments and sought his opinion on virtually every topic. ![]() Mendelssohn-Hensel wrote her first composition at age 11, in honor of her father's birthday. Lea Mendelssohn, who was a gifted musician, was the first to instruct them in music, and soon they were inventing games that centered on composing. As the two oldest children, Fanny and Felix were educated together, and developed a particularly close relationship which would remain central to both of their lives. ![]() The product of the Enlightenment approach to learning, they began their lessons each day at dawn, reading Goethe and Shakespeare before moving on to science and drawing. Both her mother's and her father's sides of the family had grown wealthy as international bankers, and around 1811 the Mendelssohns moved to Berlin, where they spared no expense on their children's education Fanny and her siblings were probably among the best educated children of their era. The first of four children of Abraham and Lea Salomon Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1805. Yet while Felix gave his first public performance at age nine and quickly went on to a lauded and very public career as a composer and pianist, throughout her life Fanny was strongly discouraged by her family (including her brother) from performing in public or even publishing her numerous compositions. Born only three years apart into a rich and cultured German-Jewish family, both sister and brother showed early an extraordinary aptitude for music which their parents encouraged. The lives of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and her brother Felix Mendelssohn provide a striking illustration of the way in which societal and familial expectations of appropriate behavior for women in the 19th century could impact even the wealthy and highly talented. 1830).īecame Fanny Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, converting with her family from Judaism to Protestantism at age 11, the same year she wrote her first musical composition (1816) sponsored the first of her musical salons while still in her teens (1822) after her marriage, conducted large weekly musical salons which became highly influential in Berlin's musical and social circles at age 40, despite her brother's opposition, announced her intention to publish her compositions (1846) had published some sixty of her several hundred compositions by the time of her death (1847). Born Cäcilie Mendelssohn in Hamburg, Germany, on Novemdied in Berlin on daughter of Abraham Mendelssohn (an international banker) and Lea (Salomon) Mendelssohn (a gifted amateur musician) married Wilhelm Hensel (a court painter), on Octochildren: one son, Sebastian (b. Name variations: Fanny Cäcilie Fanny Hensel Fanny Mendelssohn Fanny Cäcilia Mendelssohn Fanny Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. ![]() German composer and performer whose works were increasingly performed and recorded in the late 20th century and whose playing and compositions have been compared favorably to those of her more famous brother Felix Mendelssohn. ![]()
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