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Fanny Hensel's Op. 6, No. 1 and the Art of Musical Reminiscence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

R. Larry Todd
R. Larry Todd
Affiliation:
Durham, NC
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Extract

At first glance, Fanny Hensel's Andante espressivo in A♭ major – the first of the Vier Lieder für das Pianoforte op. 6, published in June 1847 just weeks after her death – impresses as a concise example of a textless, nocturne-like song cut from the cloth of her short piano character pieces and occasionally, but just occasionally, reminiscent of her brother's more celebrated Lieder ohne Worte. The 61 bars of the Andante show the gifts of an accomplished songwriter as they unfold an uninterrupted, ‘singing’ soprano melody, at times euphonious and lyrical, at times poignant and passionate, above a gently rippling accompaniment of arpeggiated triplets. The basic structure of the composition is clear enough. We hear in succession: 1) the melody in the tonic and a modulation (10 bars) to 2) a statement on the dominant (13 bars); 3) a retransition and dominant pedal point (9 bars) leading to 4) the return of the opening in the tonic (16 bars), further supported by 5) a coda, drawn once again from the melody (13 bars). The compositional plan is thus one of statement, departure and return, a familiar sequence Hensel employed in the majority of her short piano pieces, and yet a deceptively simple strategy that afforded her considerable latitude, within the circumscribed, epigrammatic realm of the piano miniature, to explore a wide emotional range of colours, textures and musico-poetic ideas.

Type
Articles
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , November 2007 , pp. 89 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 Released by Bote & Bock in Berlin, op. 6 was announced in June 1847 in Hofmeister's Musikalisch-Literarische Monatsberichte neuer Musikalien, vol. 19Google Scholar . See Klein, Hans-Günter, Das verborgene Band: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und seine Schwester Fanny Hensel (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1997): 220Google Scholar . For a reprint of the Bote & Bock first edition, see Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn, Piano Music, ed. Todd, R. Larry (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004)Google Scholar.

2 Cornelia Bartsch, ‘Das Lied ohne Worte op. 6,1 als offener Brief’, in Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Komponieren zwischen Geselligkeitsideal und romantischer Musikästhetik, ed. Borchard, Beatrix and Schwarz-Danuser, Monika, 2nd edn (Kassel: Furore, 2002) : 55–72Google Scholar.

3 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preuβischer Kulturbesitz, Mendelssohn Archiv Ms. 49, p. 119.

4 No. 454 in the catalogue by Renate Hellwig-Unruh [H-U], Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Thematisches Verzeichnis der Kompositionen (Adliswil: Edition Kunzelmann, 2000): 62 and 351.Google Scholar

5 Hensel, Fanny, Tagebücher, ed. Klein, Hans-Günter and Elvers, Rudolf (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2002): 268 (23 Sep. 1846), ll. 15–16.Google Scholar

6 Fanny to Felix, 9 Jul. 1846, in Citron, Marcia J., The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, Collected, Edited and Translated with Introductory Essays and Notes (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1987): 349–51.Google Scholar

7 Hensel, , Tagebücher: 266.Google Scholar

8 Felix to Fanny, 12 Aug. 1846 , Hensel, Sebastian, The Mendelssohn Family (1729–1847) from Letters and Journals, trans. Klingemann, Carl Jr [] (London, 1881; repr. New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1969): II, 326Google Scholar.

9 Hensel, , Tagebücher: 266Google Scholar . (For the German original see Reich, Nancy, ‘The Diaries of Fanny Hensel and Clara Schumann’, p. 31, n. 28 of this issue.)Google Scholar

10 See further my chapter ‘On Stylistic Affinities in the Works of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’, in The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, ed. Cooper, John Michael and Prandi, Julie D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 245–61, here at 257–9Google Scholar.

11 H-U No. 424. The title also appears in Fanny's Tagebücher, 264, in reference to Sebastian's ‘debut’ at a ball on 16 May.

12 In 1841 and 1845 Fanny made two additional copies of the piece, which she entitled Abschied and Abschied von Rom. See further the illuminating study by Hans-Günter Klein, ‘“Alle die infamen Gefühle”: Überlegungen zu Fanny Hensels Klavierstück Abschied von Rom’, in Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung Preuβischer Kulturbesitz 2003, ed. Wagner, Günther (Stuttgart: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 2003): 177–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 H-U 18 and 95; see also Todd, R. Larry, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003): 85Google Scholar.

14 Vier römische Klavierstücke, ed. Lambour, Christian (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1999): 3–6.Google Scholar

15 Klavierstücke aus der Sammlung “Zwölf Clavierstücke von Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Für Felix 1843”, ed. Hellwig-Unruh, Renate (Frankfurt am Main: Robert Lienau Musikverlag, 1999): 4–14.Google Scholar

16 Letter of 4 May 1840 from Fanny Hensel to the Dirichlets, in Hensel, Fanny, Briefe aus Rom an ihre Familie in Berlin 1839/40, ed. Klein, Hans-Günter (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2002): 93Google Scholar.

17 See Klein, Hans-Günter, ‘Fanny und Wilhelm Hensel und die Maler Elsasser’, in Mendelssohn Studien 13 (2003): 125–67.Google Scholar

18 Mendelssohn Archiv Ms. 163, p. 27. See further, Klein, Hans-Günter, Die Mendelssohns in Italien (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2002): 69–70Google Scholar.

19 Hensel, , Tagebücher: 132.Google Scholar

20 Mendelssohn Archiv Ms. 163: 51.

21 Die Mendelssohns in Italien: 74–5, with a facsimile of the first page of Fanny's autograph on p. 81.

22 Fanny Hensel to her mother, Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 14 March 1840, in Hensel, , Briefe aus Rom: 65Google Scholar.

23 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 49 (1847), col. 382Google Scholar (‘Ueber die Claviercompositionen von Fanny Hensell geb. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’).