Portrait of Fanny Hensel, 1842.
Artist:  Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800–1882)

Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn (b. 11/14/1805 – d. 5/14/1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era, later known as Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy and as Fanny Hensel. Her compositions number over 450, and include a string quartet, a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, more than 125 pieces for solo piano, and over 250 lieder. Most of these were unpublished in her lifetime. Although lauded for her piano technique, she rarely gave public performances outside her family circle.

She grew up in Berlin and received a thorough musical education from teachers including her mother, as well as other composers. Her younger brother Felix, also a composer and pianist, shared the same education. Because of social constraints on females at the time, six of her songs were published under her brother’s name.

In 1829, she married artist Wilhelm Hensel and, in 1830, they had their only child, Sebastian Hensel. In 1846, despite the continuing ambivalence of some of her family, she published a collection of songs as her Opus 1.

A year later, she died from complications from a stroke, aged 41. Her brother, Felix, died less than six months later from the same cause after completing his String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, written in memory of his sister. This same medical condition was also responsible for the deaths of both of their parents and their grandfather, Moses. 

During the 19th century Fanny mainly figured as a bystander in biographies and studies of her brother Felix; typically she was a representative of a supposed ‘feminizing’ influence that sapped his artistry.  In the 20th century the conventional narrative switched to presenting Felix as disapproving of his sister’s musical activities and seeking to contain them, whilst the ‘feminizing’ accusation against Fanny evaporated.

Since the 1990s, her life and works have been the subject of more detailed research. Her Easter Sonata was inaccurately credited to her brother in 1970, before new analysis of documents in 2010 corrected the attribution.

The tale of Fanny, the ‘suppressed’ composer,’ has so readily found a place in the biographies of the siblings because of its resemblance to prevailing models for the life of a ‘Great Composer’ … based in Romantic ideology about male artists. … Hensel fits neatly into a traditional narrative of the suffering artistic genius … with a modern twist: the feminine gender of its main character. Thus two characters [Felix and Fanny] are forced to bear the weight of two centuries of gender ideology. – Marian Wilson Kimber (2004)

The Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn Museum opened on 29 May 2018 in Hamburg, Germany.

Source: wikipedia:

Sheila Hayman, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Fanny Mendelssohn, released a 97-minute documentary Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn in 2023.

Another magnificent musical artist I enjoyed learning about.  If you gave me Fanny’s name, THANK YOU.