Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel – Overture in C Major | Conducted by Nil Venditti

To mark International Women’s Day 2022, Ulster Orchestra presents performances from our season concerts of works by women composers.

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel was forced by her position in upper-class 19thcentury German society to grow as a musician and composer largely in the shadow of her brother, Felix. Fanny however, was a highly skilled and very well accomplished pianist by the age of 13. Though her father was insistent that music would not be a suitable pursuit for his daughter in adult life, she defiantly continued to compose. Almost 500 works in various music forms are attributed to Fanny, including The Italien, which was famously originally released under brother Felix’s name. During a performance for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, the monarch asked to hear her ‘favourite’ Felix Mendelssohn piece – which happened to be The Italien.

Fanny’s husband, Wilhelm Hensel, was supportive of her composing, and the couple hosted many concerts from their own personal wing of the Mendelssohn family home in Berlin. On the occasion of the 15th June 1834, the Berline Königstadt theatre and their conduct Julius Lecerf arrived to give a very special premier, of Fanny’s first (and only) purely orchestra composition (Overture in C Major), composed two years earlier. Finally publishing her own work under her own name at the age of 41 was a triumph tragically short lived for Fanny, who died shortly afterwards.

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#IDW2022 #InternationalWomensDay

[anniestrong]

Wow....that's quite a work ?.Wonderful to hear it played with such warmth...Thank you Ulster Orchestra.

[BoroRaph]

Ad interrupts this at the 7 minute mark 😡😡😡😡

[drc]

Like Mendelssohn and Mozart but better! ;)