Fanny mendelssohn professional#

The Mendelssohn BartholdysвЂ™ ReckвЂ™sche Palais on Leipziger Strasse becomes not only a home but a temple of the muses for the musician and her painter husband.

And so guests sometimes go straight to Wilhelm HenselвЂ™s studio after a concert to sit for a portrait. Her husbandвЂ™s studio is next to the Garden Hall, where she presents BerlinвЂ™s best private concert series. Julius Helfft, вЂњThe Music Room of Fanny Hensel,вЂќ 1849, Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York.ДЇanny, who is highly self-critical, plays several demanding roles at once: She is mother to her son Sebastian, wife and back office secretary to her artist husband, as well as a composer. FannyвЂ™s music room with piano, sewing table, and paintings by her husband.

Fanny mendelssohn professional#

Her first big trip to Italy with her husband and their ten-year-old son Sebastian becomes her fondest memory, particularly the companionship and professional recognition she receives from fellow artists at the Villa Medici in Rome. Cantatas by Bach are staples of the program, along with works by herself, her brother, and other contemporaries.

Here, between 18, she performs music with professionals and amateurs drawn from family and friends. While drawing on small-format works to gather experience in composing and performing, she uses the demanding Sunday Concerts as a forum. Six booklets of Lieder and piano pieces appear in 1846/47. The first work published her own name, вЂњAve Maria,вЂќ is printed in England. Some of her early Lieder are published under her brotherвЂ™s name. More than half of these are Lieder for solo voice the rest include pieces for piano and organ, for a choir, orchestral works, as well as chamber music, cantatas, and an oratorio. Over 450 musical works have come down to us from Fanny Hensel, nГ©e Mendelssohn, whose surname was вЂњMendelssohn BartholdyвЂќ from the conversion of her parents in 1822 until her marriage in 1829. In the Eternal City, he falls in with the devoutly Catholic school of artists known as the вЂњNazarenes.вЂќ The wedding of Fanny and Wilhelm on October 3rd, 1829 in the Berlin Parochialkirche marks the first time that the (baptized) members of the Mendelssohn family are joined to a family without Jewish heritage without the newlyweds having to leave Berlin as a consequence. In order to prevent Fanny from being infected by the penniless artistвЂ™s pious вЂњsuperstition,вЂќ her parents вЂ“ themselves only recently baptized вЂ“ insist that they cut off contact for five years:Дuring this time, the man still hoping to become their son-in-law is awarded a fellowship by the Prussian King to study in Rome. Fanny, the bankerвЂ™s daughter with an ironic sense of humor, and the pastorвЂ™s son from Brandenburg with Catholic ambitions fall in love, despite their origins in very different milieus. The painter had met the 17-year-old Fanny in the context of the court ball вЂњLalla Rukh,вЂќ where he had been commissioned to create portraits of the illustrious attendees of Prussian high society, clad in exotic costumes. Already during the betrothal period, he encouraged his wife to not give up her musical productivity just to avoid private quarrels, whatever the circumstances. Wilhelm Hensel, the dashing former soldier who had served in the Wars of Liberation, takes his wifeвЂ™s side in the conflict about her proper role.

Wilhelm Hensel, Fanny Hensel, 1847, В© bpk / Kupferstichkabinett, SMB / Photo: JГ¶rg P. With only a few interruptions, these highly regarded concerts continue to be held for nearly a quarter of a century at the glass-domed Garden Hall of the ReckвЂ™sche Palais on Leipziger Strasse. These soirГ©es evolve into regular events attended by relatives, friends, acquaintances, and members of Berlin society, as well as artists who happen to be in town. And so the pianist, conductor, impresario, and the most important woman composer of the 19th century initially confines her creativity to the semi-public arena: She becomes the promoter and impresaria of the familyвЂ™s Sunday Concerts, a tradition whose beginnings can be traced to back to her grandmother Bella SalomonвЂ™s home on Hackesche Markt around 1820. Felix also discourages his sister: In order to be a professional composer, he warns, it is not a matter of simply composing a work now and again вЂ“ instead, a composer must regularly edit works and deal with the ensuing critical reactions.