THE MENDELSSOHNS
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
Felix Mendelssohn
Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn shared a musical education that shaped their distinct yet interconnected voices. As close collaborators, they influenced each other's compositions, helping define the "Mendelssohnian" style. However, while Felix’s works gained widespread recognition, Fanny’s remained unpublished, performed only at her Sunday salons for elite audiences. This concert highlights her voice alongside his, inviting a reevaluation of her role as an equal contributor to their shared musical legacy.
Ostersonate (Easter Sonata): Authorship, Rediscovery, and Reception
April 7, 1828 (Easter Sunday)
April 10, 1829
August 19, 1829
August 26, 1829
1972
1975
1983
1992
2000
2009
2012
October 2022
August 2024
Fanny Mendelssohn composes the Easter Sonata (as dated on the manuscript).
Felix departs Berlin for London via Hamburg. On the same day, Fanny records in her diary that she played her Easter Sonata.
Klingemann writes to the Mendelssohn family from Liverpool, noting that Felix performed the first movement of the Easter Sonata aboard the American packet ship Napoleon.
Fanny writes to Felix, referencing Klingemann’s account of Felix's performance of her Easter Sonata in Liverpool.
Eric Heidsieck recorded the Sonate de Pâques (Easter Sonata), attributed to Felix Mendelssohn, on the Cassiopée label in France.
Rudolf Elvers describes a manuscript—then in private possession—that included a missing sonata.
Roger Fiske suggested that Felix Mendelssohn’s Fantasie, Op. 28, might be the missing Easter Sonata.
Françoise Tillard notes that the Easter Sonata remained in private hands, describing it as “in the private ownership of someone who would allow no one to see it.”
Renate Hellwig-Unruh lists the manuscript as lost.
The manuscript was examined by Angela Mace Christian, who verified that it was in Fanny Mendelssohn’s handwriting and determined that it had been cut from her book of compositions. However, a critical edition of the sonata was not yet possible, as the manuscript remains in private possession.
Angela Christian’s dissertation, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and the Formation of the Mendelssohnian Style (Duke University, 2013), includes a performing edition of the Easter Sonata based on the manuscript copy in the possession of Eric Heidsieck (though there are some discrepancies between the edition and the original manuscript)
Fanny’s original manuscript of the sonata, missing again in 2014, resurfaced in 2022 when acquired by Robert Owen Lehman and placed on deposit at the Morgan Library & Museum. It was received in October 2022 by curator Robinson McClellan and will be preserved and accessible for study.
A critical edition of the sonata was published by Bärenreiter.
Bibliography
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Christian, Angela Mace. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and the Formation of the Mendelssohnian Style. PhD diss., Duke University, 2013.
The Morgan Library & Museum. “Fanny Mendelssohn’s Easter Sonata.” The Morgan Blog, October 2022. https://www.themorgan.org/blog/fanny-mendelssohns-easter-sonata.
The Morgan Library & Museum. “Sonate (Easter Sonata) in A Major, for Piano, Holograph Manuscript Signed, Dated March 1828.” Accessed May 12, 2025. https://www.themorgan.org/music-manuscripts-and-printed-music/444398.
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