March is Women’s History Month! In honor of lovely ladies, I’m posting solely female musicians this month.

• Artist: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
• Song: März - Prealudium un Choral
• Album: Das Jahr (The Year)

Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn (1805-1847) was a German pianist and composer, the sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn and granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. The siblings shared a great passion for music. Like Felix (who was born in 1809), Fanny showed prodigious musical ability as a child and began to write music.

However, Fanny was limited by prevailing attitudes of the time toward women, attitudes apparently shared by her father, who was tolerant, rather than supportive, of her activities as a composer. Her father wrote to her in 1820 “Music will perhaps become his [i.e. Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament.” Although Felix was privately broadly supportive of her as a composer and a performer, he was cautious (professedly for family reasons) of her publishing her works under her own name. He wrote: “From my knowledge of Fanny I should say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this. She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the musical world, nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it.”

Felix did however arrange with her for some of her songs to be published under his name, three in his Op. 8 collection, and three more in his Op. 9. In 1842, this resulted in an embarrassing moment when Queen Victoria, receiving Felix at Buckingham Palace, expressed her intention of singing the composer her favorite of his songs, “Italien”, which Mendelssohn confessed was by Fanny. In turn Fanny helped Felix by constructive criticism of pieces and projects, which he always considered very carefully.

Fanny Hensel died in Berlin in 1847 of complications from a stroke suffered while rehearsing one of her brother’s oratorios, The First Walpurgis Night. Felix himself died less than six months later from the same cause, but not before completing his String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, written in memory of his sister.

In recent years, her music has become better known thanks to concert performances and a number of CDs. Her reputation has also been advanced by those researching female musical creativity, of which she is one of the relatively few well-documented exemplars in the early 19th century.

Hensel composed over 460 pieces of music. Her compositions include a piano trio and several books of solo piano pieces and songs. A number of her songs were originally published under Felix’s name in his opus 8 and 9 collections. Her piano works are often in the manner of songs, and many carry the name Lied ohne Worte (Song without Words). This style (and title) of piano music was most successfully developed by Felix Mendelssohn, though some modern scholars assert that Fanny may have preceded him in the genre.

She also wrote, amongst other works for the piano, a cycle of pieces depicting the months of the year, Das Jahr (“The Year”). The music was written on colored sheets of paper, and illustrated by her husband Wilhelm . Each piece was also accompanied by a short poem. In a letter from Rome, Hensel described the process behind composing Das Jahr: “I have been composing a good deal lately, and have called my piano pieces after the names of my favorite haunts, partly because they really came into my mind at these spots, partly because our pleasant excursions were in my mind while I was writing them. They will form a delightful souvenir, a kind of second diary. But do not imagine that I give these names when playing them in society, they are for home use entirely.”