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A Bicentennial Reflection: Twenty-five Years with Fanny Hensel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

Marcia J. Citron
Marcia J. Citron
Affiliation:
Houston
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Extract

This paper originated in the keynote address delivered at the Fanny Hensel bicentenary conference organized by the University of Oxford, Faculty of Music and held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, 22–24 July 2005. As its title suggests, it marks a quarter-century acquaintance with Fanny Hensel. Although in recent years my research has expanded into opera on film, and that has obviously taken me into very different terrain, still Hensel continues to exert a special fascination. Preparing the edition of her letters to Felix Mendelssohn brought me into her private world, a world she assumed would remain private. I came to admire, and even love, her intelligence, her wit and her musical sophistication. It is not unusual for researchers to be enthusiastic about the person they are studying or to identify with them – this may be one reason for choosing that person in the first place, and is undoubtedly a reason why we chose to celebrate Fanny Hensel's bicentenary with the Oxford conference. In short, Fanny Hensel fascinates us.

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Articles
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , November 2007 , pp. 7 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 Citron, Marcia J., The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, Collected, Edited and Translated with Introductory Essays and Notes (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1987).Google Scholar

2 Briony Williams, however, has suggested that the eventual publication of their letters may have been in the Mendelssohn family's minds: see her paper, ‘Biography and Symbol: Uncovering the Structure of a Creative Life in Fanny Hensel's Lieder’, pp. 49–65 of this issue, and cf. Matthew Head's similar point in his paper, ‘Genre, Romanticism and Female Authorship: Fanny Hensel's “Scottish” Sonata in G Minor (1843)’, pp. 67–88 of this issue.

3 Oliver Strunk's English translation appears in Music in the Western World: A History in Documents, ed. Weiss, Piero and Taruskin, Richard (New York: Schirmer Books, 1984): 362–3Google Scholar.

4 Citron, Marcia J., ‘Women and the Lied, 1775–1850’, in Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950, ed. Bowers, Jane and Tick, Judith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986): 224–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Bowers, and Tick, , eds, Women Making Music.Google Scholar

6 The pioneer feminist historian Gerda Lerner has discussed the idea of ‘history worthy’ for women; see her ‘Placing Women in History: A 1975 Perspective’, in Liberating Women's History, ed. Carroll, Berenice A. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976): 357–67Google Scholar . For a study of Western music's engagement with the second and third waves of feminism, see Citron, Marcia J., ‘Feminist Waves and Classical Music: Pedagogy, Performance, Research’, Women in Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 8 (2004): 47–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Elvers, Rudolf, ‘Verzeichnis der Musik-Autographen von Fanny Hensel in dem Mendelssohn-Arkiv zu Berlin’, Mendelssohn Studien, 1 (1972): 169–74Google Scholar . A list of her music in private hands appears in Elvers, , ‘Weitere Quellen zu den Werken von Fanny Hensel’, Mendelssohn Studien, 2 (1975): 215–20Google Scholar.

8 See Swan, Christopher, ‘The Other Mendelssohn’, Christian Science Monitor (27 Mar. 1986): 17.Google Scholar

9 Citron, Marcia J., ‘The Lieder of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’, Musical Quarterly 69 (1983): 570–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 E-mail communication to the author of 2 June 2005. My sincere thanks are due to Eva Weissweiler for her responsiveness and candour. Weissweiler also experienced inconsistent access at the Staatsbibliothek with respect to the correspondence between Robert and Clara Schumann – first she was permitted to see the documents, then she was not. She reports that the director of the library, named ‘Vesper’, wrote that it was a ‘conditio sine qua non’ that Weissweiler work with the Schumann scholar Wolfgang Boetticher to see the manuscripts (Boetticher, by the way, was a Nazi musicologist in the Third Reich). Weissweiler writes in the e-mail message: ‘after that I asked Richard von Weizsäcker, mayor of Berlin at that time, for help (telling him some facts about Boetticher's Nazi-career), and was immediately allowed to continue my work’.

11 Swan, , ‘The Other Mendelssohn’, 17.Google Scholar

12 See, for instance, Camilla Cai's expression of gratitude to the Archive's staff, in ‘Fanny Hensel's “Songs for Pianoforte” of 1836–37: Stylistic Interaction with Felix Mendelssohn’ , Journal of Musicological Research 14 (1994): n. 26Google Scholar . Nonetheless, Eva Weissweiler observes in her e-mail message to me of 2 June 2005 that, although the situation improved somewhat, she still received fragmentary and inconsistent information from the new director of the Mendelssohn Archive, Hans-Günter Klein.

13 Crum, Margaret, ed., Catalogue of the Mendelssohn Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 2 vols (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1980 & 1983)Google Scholar . Vol. 1 covers the vast majority of the collection and includes the letters addressed to Felix, including those by Fanny. Crum's Preface notes that Rudolf Elvers was behind the project in his role as editor of the bibliographical series to which Crum's Catalogue belongs.

14 Reich, Nancy B., ‘Louise Reichardt’, Ars musica, musica scientia: Festschrift Heinrich Hüschen, ed. Altenburg, Detlef (Cologne: Gitarre und Laute, 1980): 369–77Google Scholar . Reich's, magnum opus on Clara Schumann is the superb biography, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985, revised edition 2000)Google Scholar ; an earlier piece is Reich, Nancy B. and Burton, Anna, ‘Clara Schumann: Old Sources, New Readings’, Musical Quarterly 70 (1984): 332–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See my contribution, ‘Fanny Hensel's Letters to Felix Mendelssohn in the Green Books Collection at Oxford’ , Mendelssohn and Schumann: Essays On Their Music and Its Context, ed. Finson, Jon W. and Todd, R. Larry (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1984): 99–108Google Scholar . A sesquicentennial conference in 1997 on both Mendelssohn and Hensel took place at Illinois Wesleyan University, organized by John Michael Cooper. Four papers on Hensel – by Hans-Günter Klein, R. Larry Todd, Camilla Cai and Françoise Tillard – appear in the expanded conference proceedings: The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, ed. Michael, JohnCooper, and Prandi, Julie D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

16 See Todd, R. Larry, ‘Fanny Hensel's Op. 6, no. 1 and the Art of Musical Reminiscence’, pp. 89–100 of this issue.Google Scholar

17 Sirota, Victoria, ‘The Life and Works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’, DMA diss. (Boston, 1981)Google Scholar ; and Quin, Carol, ‘Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: Her Contributions to Nineteenth-Century Musical Life’, PhD diss. (Kentucky, 1981)Google Scholar.

18 For the English version see Tillard, Françoise, Fanny Mendelssohn, trans. Naish, Camille (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1996).Google Scholar

19 Büchter-Römer, Ute, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2001)Google Scholar . Other German-language books on Hensel have appeared recently, including a new biography whose publication coincides with the bicentenary year : Derado, Thea, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (Lahr: Kaufmann Verlag, 2005)Google Scholar.

20 Citron, , ‘The Lieder of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’Google Scholar ; and Rothenberg, Sarah, ‘“Thus Far, But No Farther”: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Unfinished Journey’, Musical Quarterly 77 (1993): 689–708CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Todd, R. Larry, ‘On Stylistic Affinities in the Works of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’: 245–62Google Scholar ; and Cai, Camilla, ‘Virtuoso Texture in Fanny Hensel's Piano Music’: 263–78Google Scholar ; both essays in Cooper and Prandi, eds, The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History.

22 Borchard, Beatrix and Schwarz-Danuser, Monika, eds, Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Komponieren zwischen Geselligkeitsideal und romantischer Musikästhetik, 2nd edition (Kassel: Furore, 2002)Google Scholar ; and Helmig, Martina, ed., Fanny Hensel, geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Das Werk (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1997)Google Scholar.

23 Zack's paper, not included in these proceedings, was ‘Fanny Hensel's Cantata Hiob: A Transpersonal Commentary on Divine Darkness’.

24 The collection appears under the title ‘Culture, Gender, and Music: A Forum on the Mendelssohn Family’, with the explanation that a performance of Hensel's Das Jahr formed the ‘centerpiece’ for the conference at which these studies originated. In addition to Rothenberg's essay ‘“Thus Far, But No Farther”’, intriguing pieces include David Warren Sabean, ‘Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and the Question of Incest’ (709–17); and John E. Toews, ‘Memory and Gender in the Remaking of Fanny Mendelssohn's Musical Identity: The Chorale in Das Jahr’ (727–48). Michael P. Steinberg sets up the essays with a helpful introduction (648–50).

25 Reich, Nancy B., ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel’, in Mendelssohn and His World, ed. Todd, R. Larry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 86–99Google Scholar ; and in a revised version, ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel and the Mendelssohn Family’, in Women's Voices Across Musical Worlds, ed. Bernstein, Jane A. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004): 18–35Google Scholar.

26 Citron, ‘Felix Mendelssohn's Influence on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as a Professional Composer’, Current Musicology 37–8 (1984): 9–17; and Tillard, ‘Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel: The Search for Perfection in Opposing Private and Public Worlds’, in Cooper and Prandi, eds, The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History: 279–90.

27 Citron, Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, which offers English translations and commentary as well as the original German versions. Weissweiler's editions include Fanny Mendelssohn: Ein Portrait in Briefen (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1991)Google Scholar , and ‘Die Musik will gar nicht rutschen ohne Dich.’ Fanny und Felix Mendelssohn: Briefwechsel 1821 bis 1846 (Berlin: Propyläen, 1997)Google Scholar.

28 Hensel, Fanny, Tagebücher, ed. Klein, Hans-Günter and Elvers, Rudolf (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2002)Google Scholar . For an insightful review, see Grotjahn, Rebecca, ‘Die “story” der unterdrückten Komponistin – ein feministischer Mythos? Anmerkungen zu einigen neuen Publikationen über Fanny Hensel’, Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 7 (2004): 31–3Google Scholar.

29 See Reich, Nancy B., ‘The Diaries of Fanny Hensel and Clara Schumann: A Study in Contrasts’, pp. 21–36Google Scholar of this issue.

30 Koch, Paul-August, Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn. Kompositionen: Eine Zusammenstellung der Werke, Literatur und Schallplatten (Frankfurt: Zimmermann, 1993)Google Scholar : I wish to record my gratitude to Eva Rieger for sending me a copy.

31 Huber, Annegret, ‘In welcher Form soll man Fanny Hensels “Choleramusik” aufführen?’ Mendelssohn Studien, 10 (1997): 227–45.Google Scholar

32 Higgins's paper, which does not appear in the proceedings, was ‘“The Most Frightening Creature Imaginable”: Fanny Hensel and the Anxiety of Authorship’.

33 This comparison inevitably leaves out some important work produced elsewhere: for example, Tillard's biography, which originated in France.

34 Higgins, Paula, ‘Women in Music, Feminist Criticism, and Guerilla Musicology: Reflections on Recent Polemics’, 19th-Century Music 17 (1993): 174–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Ibid.: 178.

36 Solie, Ruth A., ‘Changing the Subject’, Current Musicology 53 (1993): 55–65Google Scholar [issue entitled ‘Approaches to the Discipline’, ed. Edmund J. Goehring].

37 McClary, Susan, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).Google Scholar

38 Wood, Elizabeth, ‘Settling Old Scores’ [Review of McClary's Feminine Endings], The Women's Review of Books, 8/12 (Sep. 1991): 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Higgins, , ‘Women in Music’: 187–8Google Scholar. Higgins, , ‘Women in Music’: 176–7Google Scholar.

40 For a general discussion of the historiographical implications of centred and decentred subjectivity for female composers, see Citron, , Gender and the Musical Canon, reprint edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000): 118–19Google Scholar.

41 Tick, Judith, Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar . See my review in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26/1 (autumn 2000): 324–6Google Scholar.

42 See Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).Google Scholar

43 Higgins, Paula, ‘The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical Genius’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 57/3 (autumn 2004): 443–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Head, Matthew, ‘Cultural Meanings for Women Composers: Charlotte (‘Minna’) Brandes and the Beautiful Dead in the German Enlightenment’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 57/2 (summer 2004): 231–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Kimber, Marian Wilson, ‘The “Suppression” of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography’, 19th-Century Music 26/2 (autumn 2002): 113–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Grotjahn, ‘Die “story” der unterdrückten Komponistin’: 27–45. My thanks are due to Paula Higgins for bringing Grotjahn's essay to my attention. Italics and exclamation marks in the translations appear in the original.

47 Grotjahn, ‘Die “story” der unterdrückten Komponistin’: 27–8.

48 Ibid.: 28.

49 Ibid.: 29.

50 Ibid.: 30–31.

51 The question of naming female authors in writing about them is a very interesting one, deserving more space to consider than can be allotted here. (It could be argued that a surname that is not your husband's, but yours from birth, would buttress female agency.)

52 For a fuller version of my observations on Kimber's essay, see Citron, ‘Feminist Waves and Classical Music: Pedagogy, Performance, Research’, Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 8 (2004), esp. 57–60Google Scholar.

53 Paula Higgins, e-mail communication to the author, 14 December 2003.

54 Sarah Rothenberg was performing (‘Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: Das Jahr’, Sarah Rothenberg, piano, Arabesque CD Z6666, 1996).