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Fanny Mendelssohn
Apr. 22nd, 2021 05:43 pmThese last ten days or so, I've kept reading all I could get my hands on by and about Fanny Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy, Hensel). I had been vaguely aware of her in the past as sister of (Felix), and granddaughter of (Moses), and I knew she'd composed, but then I listened to a wonderful audio portrait of her available on Audible ("Nach Süden. A correspondence and eleven songs"), and was swept away by the charm and wit of her letters, and the eleven songs she'd composed were also beautiful. Audible had another Fanny book in their repertoire, this one exclusively focused on her correspondence with her brother Felix, since it had started out as a radio feature apropos his 200th birthday. ("Du fehlst einem spät und früh: Der Briefwechsel von Fanny und Felix Mendelssohn"), which was also great, and so I raided the university library. (Which within limits of six booiks at a time is possible again.)
One printed correspondence, one diaries edition, one biography and one portrait in quotes from letters and diaries later: Fanny was indeed fabulous, and the Mendelssohn family, unsurprisingly, the definition of "it's complicated", refusing easy categories. (Other than being the most famous German-Jewish family of the 18th and 19th century.)
( On how Fanny was and wasn't a real life example of a Virginia Woolf theory )
( Detour: What's in a name, if you're a converted Jew in antisemitic times )
( Sibling correspondence quotes )
Lastly, some of her compositions:
Her cycle "The Year" in its entirety:
Something shorter: Fanny's version of Goethe's poem "Kennst du das Land?"
Schwanenlied, i.e. "Swan Song":
One printed correspondence, one diaries edition, one biography and one portrait in quotes from letters and diaries later: Fanny was indeed fabulous, and the Mendelssohn family, unsurprisingly, the definition of "it's complicated", refusing easy categories. (Other than being the most famous German-Jewish family of the 18th and 19th century.)
( On how Fanny was and wasn't a real life example of a Virginia Woolf theory )
( Detour: What's in a name, if you're a converted Jew in antisemitic times )
( Sibling correspondence quotes )
Lastly, some of her compositions:
Her cycle "The Year" in its entirety:
Something shorter: Fanny's version of Goethe's poem "Kennst du das Land?"
Schwanenlied, i.e. "Swan Song":
