The documentary Fanny: The Other Mendelssohndirected by veteran British filmmaker Sheila Haymanbegins with a revealing scene: in 1842, the great composer Félix Mendelssohn (author, among many other compositions, of the Wedding March most played in the world every day) is received at Buckingham Palace by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Mendelssohn is already a famous musician, who had begun a tour of Europe in the purest style of what could today be considered a rock star. The composer is as excited as the queen, a known music lover with soprano qualities. So she asks him to sing and for him to accompany her on the piano with a Mendelssohn song titled Italian, the queen’s favorite, the monarch clarifies. Between blushing and anger, Mendelssohn confesses: although the piece of music has been published under his name, the authorship is not his, but his sister Fanny’s.
This is the story of another lacerating silencing of a woman in the art world. Neither then nor later throughout history has she transcended the name of Fanny Mendelssohn (Hamburg, 1805–Berlin, 1847) or Fanny Hensel, if one opts for her married name, the sister three years older than famous Felix. A direct descendant of the talented composer who created some of the compositions attributed to her brother, Hayman, with a renowned career in the United Kingdom – winner of several Bafta awards – has dedicated recent years to reconstructing the life and artistic dignity of a true unknown. . Of course, she recognizes that she approached the project guided by the only possible trail, the male voice of her brother. “I had made a film about Felix for the BBC in 2009 and it was there that I began to discover the extraordinary gifts of his sister Fanny, but also her lifelong struggle between the desire to express herself artistically and the horror of disturbing people. family,” explains the filmmaker during a brief visit to Seville, where she went last week for the Spanish premiere of the film.
“Reading my own family’s account, one never comes to the conclusion that Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s older sister, was also a brilliant composer. Her own son, my great-great-grandfather Sebastian, draws in her letters a vivid image of her: she was fun, bright, loving…. but He doesn’t spend a single word describing her as a composer.“, highlights the director, who has carried out an exhaustive search through different European archives of the correspondence between the two brothers, as well as that belonging to their only son, thanks to which she has been able to piece together Fanny’s story.
The letters, frequent and rich in details since Félix began his tour of Europe, serve to explain the deep union that existed between the two brothers, who from childhood had an important – and joint – musical education. The Mendelssohns, who had made a fortune in banking and had converted from Judaism to Christianity to gain social position in Berlin in the first half of the 19th century, were trying to become part of the aristocracy of the German capital. Any misstep would be punished. Thus, although Fanny’s gift for music equaled and in some cases surpassed that of her brother, her father Abraham was blunt when the girl turned 14. Until then, the brothers studied and composed together, their union was as fraternal as it was intellectual. But in a letter dated 1820, the father wants to make it clear that that stage has come to an end: “Music may become his profession.” [la de Félix]while for you it can only be and should be an ornament, never the root of your being and doing.”
From that moment on, the decorum and good manners required of a woman of her condition were placed above her musical talent. Fanny is prevented from playing any string instrument that would involve opening her legs to do so, such as the viola or cello, or other wind instruments – “the movements of the mouth could seem excessively sensual”, explains the director during the course of the documentary. ―. “Fanny wanted what many people wanted at that time: to get married, start a happy family with children and not bother her parents,” analyzes the director. However, she “turned out to have such enormous talent that it spilled over into everything she did.”
Thanks to the sensitivity of her husband, the painter Wilhelm Hensel, Fanny never stopped composing, even though she knew she could not make a career in music. “Wilhelm is the hero of this story: he refused to marry Fanny unless she continued composing,” says the director in the documentary. This was not the case with her brother Félix, who, although he relied on his sister’s talent to shine inside and outside of his native Germany, left in writing a description of Fanny completely removed from reality, with the intention of presenting her as if she had no aspirations to act outside the private sphere: “From what I know about Fanny, I would say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for authorship. She is too much of a woman to be for this. She controls her house and she doesn’t think about the public or the musical world, not even about music, until she fulfills her first duties. Her posting would only upset her on these and I can’t say she approves,” wrote the composer.
However, the eldest Mendelssohn found certain shortcuts to avoid living apart from music. At a time when there were no recordings, the only way to be aware of new musical developments was to listen to them live, go to concerts, travel around the continent, like her brother did. So, trapped in a house with a husband and a son, she decided that if she couldn’t come to the music, the music would come to her. The concert festivals organized by Fanny, who had become a businesswoman, in her own home were famous. “The best musicians in Europe came to lend her talents, but even here, Fanny rarely programmed her own music,” the documentary says.
The movie Fanny: The Other Mendesshonn It is a beautiful example of the resilience and ingenuity with which this composer overcame the challenges of her time and condition, also rescued by women with special commitment and musical careers around the world. Parading through the footage are personalities such as Marcia Citron, a professor at Rice University in Houston, who traveled from the United States to Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, to organize Fanny’s papers, which remained uncatalogued and unseen. Likewise, the British musicologist Angela Mace it’s key. Thanks to her research, he recovered the authorship of Fanny Mendelssohn for his acquaintance Easter Sonata. “It was the contemporary thread that I needed to start the film,” acknowledges the filmmaker.
It has therefore had to be a detective work led by women, which is transferred to the documentary, that puts Fanny Mendelssohn in her rightful place in the history of music. Just like the commitment of the Almaclara-Inés Rosales Sevillian chamber orchestra, popularizer of Fanny’s work and thanks to whom this film has been able to be premiered in Seville and Valencia. “The Almaclara project was born in 2008 precisely as a tribute to all those women who have been fundamental in the history of music but who have not received the recognition they deserve. This has not been because of their lack of talent, but because of their own status as women,” explains its director, Beatriz González Calderón.
Her repertoire, in fact, is full of pieces signed by many other forgotten voices, which now sound clearly: Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Teresa Carreño, Amy Beach, Marianne Martinez, Florence Price…
All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.
Subscribe
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
RECEIVE IT
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Fanny #Mendelssohn #womans #symphony #played