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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

Susan Wollenberg
Susan Wollenberg
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

The eight articles published here represent the selected proceedings of the conference held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, 22–24 July 2005, under the auspices of the University of Oxford, Faculty of Music, to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn Bartholdy). As conference organizer I was deeply gratified by the list of speakers and papers we were able to assemble for the conference programme. The conference also featured two concerts given by Françoise Tillard (pianoforte) with Erika Klemperer (violin) and Robert Max (cello), performing piano and chamber works of Fanny Hensel; and April Fredrick (soprano), with Briony Williams accompanying, in lieder of Fanny Hensel and her circle. Peter Ward Jones (Music Librarian, Bodleian Library, Oxford) arranged and introduced an exhibition of materials from the Bodleian's Mendelssohn collection as part of the conference. The opportunity to achieve a close concentration of attention on Fanny Hensel provided by the event is now further developed in the proceedings published in this special issue of Nineteenth-Century Music Review.

Type
Articles
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , November 2007 , pp. 3 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 It was evident that, for all of us present at the Oxford conference, the experience of spending three days in intensive contemplation of Fanny Hensel and her circle was an extremely rewarding one. For enabling this to happen, I am of course very grateful to all the speakers, performers, and indeed all the conference delegates for their participation; and I wish to record my thanks to the British Academy; the Board of the Faculty of Music (University of Oxford); Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; and Ashgate Publishing, for their financial support of the event, which has its outcome in the present publication. Thanks are due also to Ian Taylor and Jonathan White, research assistants on these proceedings, for their valuable help in assembling the final copy.

2 I wish to record my warm thanks to the journal's editor, Bennett Zon, for his encouragement and support of this project.

3 Reich, Nancy B., ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel’, in Mendelssohn and his World, ed. Todd, R. Larry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991): 86–99Google Scholar . I am delighted that both Larry Todd and Nancy Reich are represented by articles in the present collection.

4 For those unfamiliar with Fanny Hensel's life and work, a brief summary is provided below.

5 Larry Todd's Oxford conference paper, given under the title ‘Fanny Hensel and Musical Style’, is due to appear in a volume of his essays for Routledge; in place of it here he provides an account focused more specifically on a particular piece.

6 For detailed family trees of the Mendelssohn and Salomon families, see Klein, Hans-Günter, Das verborgene Band: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und seine Schwester Fanny Hensel (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1997)Google Scholar.

7 For a detailed account of Felix's studies with Carl Friedrich Zelter, who also taught Fanny, see Todd, R. Larry, Mendelssohn's Musical Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

8 For further discussion of this letter and its ramifications see Wollenberg, Susan, ‘Master of her Art: Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn Bartholdy), 1805–1847’, Ad Parnassum: A Journal of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music 3/6 (Oct. 2005): 33–44 (40–41)Google Scholar.

9 See Citron, Marcia J., ‘Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn’, in Sadie, Stanley and Tyrrell, John, eds, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd rev. edn, 29 vols (London: Macmillan, 2001)Google Scholar : vol. 16, 388–9.

10 Hensel, Sebastian, Die Familie Mendelssohn, 1729–1847, nach Briefen und Tagebüchern, 2nd edition, 2 vols (Berlin: B. Behr, 1880; orig. publ. 1879)Google Scholar ; trans. by Klingemann, Carl Jr [] and an American collaborator as The Mendelssohn Family (1729–1847) from Letters and Journals, 2nd rev. edn, 2 vols (London: Sampson Low, Marston Searle & Rivington, 1881)Google Scholar.

11 Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Blume, Friedrich, 17 vols (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1949–)Google Scholar ; Werner, Eric, ‘Felix Mendelssohn’: vol. 9 (1961), cols 59–98Google Scholar.

12 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, Stanley, 20 vols (London: Macmillan, 1980)Google Scholar ; Köhler, Karl-Heinz, ‘Mendelsson (-Bartholdy) [Hensel], Fanny (Cäcilie)’: vol. 12, 134Google Scholar.

13 Citron, ‘Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn’ (New Grove, 2001). See also The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, ed. Sadie, Julie Anne and Samuel, Rhian (London: Macmillan, 1994): 322–5Google Scholar.

14 Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd rev. edn, 26 vols, ed. Finscher, Ludwig (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1994–)Google Scholar ; Schwarz-Danuser, Monika, ‘[Mendelssohn], Fanny (Caecilie)’, Personenteil: vol. 11 (2004), cols 1534–42Google Scholar.

15 Among a number of key publications in these areas, see particularly the edition of Hensel's letters by Citron, Marcia J., The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, Collected, Edited and Translated with Introductory Essays and Notes (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1987)Google Scholar and Citron's series of articles on Hensel, including ‘The Lieder of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’, Musical Quarterly 69 (1983): 570–94Google Scholar and ‘Felix Mendelssohn's Influence on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as a Professional Composer’, Current Musicology 37–38 (1984): 9–17Google Scholar ; and the collection of articles on Hensel edited by Steinberg, Michael P., Musical Quarterly 77 (1993): 648–748CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Many milestones in the Hensel literature are mentioned and discussed in Marcia Citron's contribution to the present proceedings, below.

16 Wollenberg, , ‘Master of her Art’, 37.Google Scholar

17 See for example the thematic catalogue by Renate Hellwig-Unruh, , Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Thematisches Verzeichnis der Kompositionen (Adliswil: Edition Kunzelmann, 2000)Google Scholar ; the documentary compilations by Hans-Günter Klein, including (edited with Rudolf Elvers), [Fanny Hensel] Tagebücher (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2002)Google ScholarPubMed and [Fanny Hensel] Briefe aus Venedig und Neapel an ihre Familie in Berlin, 1839/40 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004)Google Scholar ; and the biography by Tillard, Françoise, Fanny Mendelssohn, trans. from the French, original by Naish, Camille (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

18 Among these plans, a major new biography of Fanny Hensel by R. Larry Todd is currently in prospect.