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drplaceboIt's still Forgotten Masterpiece Friday! (If nothing else, because I'm still awake.)
When most classical listeners are asked to name women composers, Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) tends to be one of the first two names to come to mind, along with Clara Schumann. It's perhaps an unfortunate reflection of the classical music establishment's continuing biases that Fanny Mendelssohn is known mainly because of her relation to Felix Mendelssohn; but that doesn't take away from her own considerable ability. Felix Mendelssohn was himself one of the great child prodigies in music history, producing marvelously mature music in his mid-teens, and yet many visitors to the Mendelssohn home appear to have regarded Fanny as having equal or even greater talent.
Unfortunately, Fanny Mendelssohn saw little by way of family support. Her father shared the era's prevailing attitude toward women in music. He was at best tolerant of her passion for composing, and on one occasion wrote to her: "Music will perhaps become his [Felix's] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament." Felix's relationship with her composing was more complicated. He by all accounts encouraged Fanny to compose, and appears to have respected Fanny's advice on his own compositions. He also notably championed several other female composers, securing them funding and publications and conducting the premieres of their pieces. But at the same time, he strangely discouraged Fanny from having her music published under her own name, ostensibly for family reasons, and instead arranged for it to be published ambiguously under the name of "F. Mendelssohn," who was generally assumed to be Felix. (This led to an embarrassing incident when Felix met Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. The queen mentioned her favorite of his songs, at which point Felix had to confess it was composed by his sister.) Fanny acquiesced to family pressure until she married the painter Wilhelm Hensel, who was the first to encourage her to take credit for her own work. She began to claim credit as composer at a series of private concerts held at the Hensel home in Berlin beginning in 1831. Still, it was not until 1846, the year before her death, that she finally approached a publisher on her own and had music published under her name. Perhaps she would have received her due credit had she lived longer -- in 1847 she died after suffering a stroke while rehearsing one of her brother's oratorios. (A series of strokes also claimed Felix's life six months later; their parents and paternal grandfather all died at relatively early ages of similar causes.)
Fanny Mendelssohn's only string quartet was composed in 1834, when her music was finally being performed under her own name. It is uncertain who performed or heard its premiere, but it was likely performed before a substantial audience even if the concert was private and by invitation only. The Hensels' concerts took place in a large enough space to accommodate a chamber orchestra and chorus, and guest lists were often quite long. Franz Liszt, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Charles Gounod attended regularly when they were in Berlin, as did a number of non-musical luminaries including Hans Christian Andersen. But it was not until 1989 that this quartet was finally published and recorded.
Interestingly, this quartet spends very little time in its nominal key of E-flat major; the first two movements instead appear to be centered around C minor, and there are frequent modulations to distant keys including an entire movement in a seemingly unrelated key. Aside from the key, there are other great departures from the traditional form for large-scale pieces. This quartet begins with a short slow movement -- albeit one that accelerates and becomes stormy in its middle. The second movement, marked Allegretto, brings to mind Felix's "fairy" scherzos, but with a rather darker cast. The third and longest movement is a dramatic, intensely emotional G minor Romanze. In light of the Mendelssohns' love for Mozart, it might be worth mention that G minor was Mozart's preferred key for expressing personal conflict. Finally, the quartet inverts the traditional form by ending (rather than beginning) with a brisk Allegro molto vivace in sonata form. With its daring yet entirely coherent structure, Fanny Mendelssohn's quartet may be one of the closest heirs to the late Beethoven quartets, in whose footsteps few composers dared to follow until decades later.
Since this is a live concert video, I've tried to place movements not where the music starts but where the members of the quartet begin to signal the tempo.
Movements:
I. Adagio ma non troppo (0:38)
II. Allegretto (4:43)
III. Romanze (8:47)
IV. Allegro molto vivace (15:48)
When most classical listeners are asked to name women composers, Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) tends to be one of the first two names to come to mind, along with Clara Schumann. It's perhaps an unfortunate reflection of the classical music establishment's continuing biases that Fanny Mendelssohn is known mainly because of her relation to Felix Mendelssohn; but that doesn't take away from her own considerable ability. Felix Mendelssohn was himself one of the great child prodigies in music history, producing marvelously mature music in his mid-teens, and yet many visitors to the Mendelssohn home appear to have regarded Fanny as having equal or even greater talent.
Unfortunately, Fanny Mendelssohn saw little by way of family support. Her father shared the era's prevailing attitude toward women in music. He was at best tolerant of her passion for composing, and on one occasion wrote to her: "Music will perhaps become his [Felix's] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament." Felix's relationship with her composing was more complicated. He by all accounts encouraged Fanny to compose, and appears to have respected Fanny's advice on his own compositions. He also notably championed several other female composers, securing them funding and publications and conducting the premieres of their pieces. But at the same time, he strangely discouraged Fanny from having her music published under her own name, ostensibly for family reasons, and instead arranged for it to be published ambiguously under the name of "F. Mendelssohn," who was generally assumed to be Felix. (This led to an embarrassing incident when Felix met Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. The queen mentioned her favorite of his songs, at which point Felix had to confess it was composed by his sister.) Fanny acquiesced to family pressure until she married the painter Wilhelm Hensel, who was the first to encourage her to take credit for her own work. She began to claim credit as composer at a series of private concerts held at the Hensel home in Berlin beginning in 1831. Still, it was not until 1846, the year before her death, that she finally approached a publisher on her own and had music published under her name. Perhaps she would have received her due credit had she lived longer -- in 1847 she died after suffering a stroke while rehearsing one of her brother's oratorios. (A series of strokes also claimed Felix's life six months later; their parents and paternal grandfather all died at relatively early ages of similar causes.)
Fanny Mendelssohn's only string quartet was composed in 1834, when her music was finally being performed under her own name. It is uncertain who performed or heard its premiere, but it was likely performed before a substantial audience even if the concert was private and by invitation only. The Hensels' concerts took place in a large enough space to accommodate a chamber orchestra and chorus, and guest lists were often quite long. Franz Liszt, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Charles Gounod attended regularly when they were in Berlin, as did a number of non-musical luminaries including Hans Christian Andersen. But it was not until 1989 that this quartet was finally published and recorded.
Interestingly, this quartet spends very little time in its nominal key of E-flat major; the first two movements instead appear to be centered around C minor, and there are frequent modulations to distant keys including an entire movement in a seemingly unrelated key. Aside from the key, there are other great departures from the traditional form for large-scale pieces. This quartet begins with a short slow movement -- albeit one that accelerates and becomes stormy in its middle. The second movement, marked Allegretto, brings to mind Felix's "fairy" scherzos, but with a rather darker cast. The third and longest movement is a dramatic, intensely emotional G minor Romanze. In light of the Mendelssohns' love for Mozart, it might be worth mention that G minor was Mozart's preferred key for expressing personal conflict. Finally, the quartet inverts the traditional form by ending (rather than beginning) with a brisk Allegro molto vivace in sonata form. With its daring yet entirely coherent structure, Fanny Mendelssohn's quartet may be one of the closest heirs to the late Beethoven quartets, in whose footsteps few composers dared to follow until decades later.
Since this is a live concert video, I've tried to place movements not where the music starts but where the members of the quartet begin to signal the tempo.
Movements:
I. Adagio ma non troppo (0:38)
II. Allegretto (4:43)
III. Romanze (8:47)
IV. Allegro molto vivace (15:48)