To tell the tale of the composer of
these works being premiered here on
this disc is to tell the tale of a misguided
father and to explore the remnants of
what could perhaps have been a wonderful
career. From listening to these works
of Fanny Mendelssohn, she had all of
the talent of her brother. Their father,
however, made it known that there would
be only one composer in the family and
that would be Felix. Fanny should instead
focus on being a good wife to someone.
Luckily for Fanny,
and for music lovers in our time, she
married someone with rather more liberal
views on her composing. During her married
years she composed quite a bit of chamber
music, piano pieces and songs. By the
time her father died, her brother Felix
had espoused the same view regarding
Fanny’s composing: she shouldn’t publish
her works. This of course didn’t stand
in the way of Felix’s including some
of her pieces in his published work
and representing them as his own. With
the support of her husband, she finally
made the decision to collect and publish
some of her works. She died early, at
41.
As Felix Mendelssohn
realized, the piano pieces presented
here are on a par with his own, calling
to mind especially his Songs without
Words. Quite a few of the pieces
here have fire and invention burning
in them. The largo con espressione
No. 9 written in 1837 is a standout,
with uneasy changes in its funeral march
chords that later melt into a lovely
section in relative major mode.
For this reviewer,
the Allegro grazioso No. 1 alone
makes this disc worth purchasing. The
opening theme that sings forth immediately
recalls the work of her more famous
brother, but also conjures the ghost
of a Brahms intermezzo. A great surprise
— and one that will bring the listener
to hear this piece again and again —
is the second section, which plunges
us right into the second movement of
the Brahms second piano concerto. The
theme is uncannily similar to that work,
written almost forty years later. This
is a work of great beauty, played with
wonderful restraint by Sternlicht.
At her lightest, Fanny
Mendelssohn’s works recall her brother’s
lighter moments in his own piano pieces.
Occasionally, as above, she achieves
something great, which affords us a
glimpse of what she could have been
without obstacles keeping her from the
composing she was surely meant to do.
These world premiere
recordings sound very good and are beautifully
played by Sternlicht, who has also done
a wonderful job performing far different
repertoire with two discs of Jozef Koffler’s
works, also on Acte Préalable.
It is a pity that Fanny Mendelssohn
didn’t get her due recognition outside
of musical soirées at
her home, but this disc — and others
on other labels — take us another step
toward that end. A truly enjoyable recording.
David Blomenberg
Full
Acte Préalable Catalogue
Elżbieta Sternlicht, piano 
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