Who was Fanny Mendelssohn?

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–1847) was a composer and pianist of considerable ability whose work was suppressed by her own family — a case unusually well documented, because the letters explaining why survive.

Her training. She and her younger brother Felix received the same rigorous musical education in a wealthy, intellectually formidable Berlin family. Contemporaries who heard both frequently regarded her as her brother's equal as a pianist, and her early compositional facility was evident.

The obstacle, stated plainly in writing. Her father Abraham wrote to her that music would be for Felix a profession, while for her it could only ever be an ornament — never the foundation of her existence. Felix, who loved her and relied on her judgement throughout his life, nonetheless opposed her publishing, on the grounds that it was not a suitable role for a woman of their class.

What she did anyway. She composed prolifically — well over 400 works, including lieder, piano pieces, chamber music, a piano trio and choral works. She ran the family's Sunday concerts, a serious Berlin musical institution she directed and programmed, where her own works were performed.

Published under her brother's name. Several of her songs appeared in Felix's published collections. The best-known anecdote is genuine: when Queen Victoria told Felix that her favourite of his songs was Italien, he had to admit it was Fanny's.

She published under her own name only near the end, from 1846, after years of hesitation and with her husband's encouragement. She died suddenly of a stroke in 1847, aged 41. Felix, devastated, died six months later.

Why she is being reassessed now. A large body of her manuscripts survived in family and archive collections and went largely unexamined for a century and a half. Scholarly editions, recordings and performances since the 1980s have made the music available for the first time — and the reassessment is ongoing, because much of it had simply never been heard.