CHAPTER 36
Musical Diaries: Hensel and Programmatic Piano Music
OVERVIEW
This chapter highlights the musical contributions of women in the nineteenth century. Fanny
Mendelssohn Hensel and her programmatic piano cycle Das Jahr (The Year) serve as the focus
of this chapter.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the various musical roles that women played in the nineteenth century
despite the discouragement they faced as composers
2. To understand the figure of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as an important female patron,
sponsor, pianist, and composer of music in the Romantic era
3. To recognize Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s piano cycle Das Jahr (The Year) as evidence of
her compositional talent
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Show your class a variety of nineteenth-century images that feature women in musical
contexts (performing, teaching, entertaining, listening, etc.). Make sure to incorporate
images of famous women musicians (Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, Jenny
Lind, Maria Malibran, Giuseppina Strepponi, Camille Pleyel, etc.). Ask students to consider
how these images address nineteenth-century concepts of women and femininity in musical
contexts. In what kinds of environments and spaces do women and music connect? How are
women portrayed differently from the male figures in the images? What do these images tell
us about the roles of women in musical contexts?
2. Ask students to analyze the programmatic elements of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s
September: At the River from The Year. Compared with Classical-era instrumental works
with programmatic elements (e.g., Haydn’s Military Symphony), how are Hensel’s piano
piece and the program that it implies typical of a nineteenth--century Romantic approach?
Students should note Romantic themes of nature, individualism, and memory in the
program, and the expressive melody, chromatic harmony, and rhythmic depiction of running
water in the accompaniment.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Amateur piano playing emerged during the nineteenth century as symbolic of female
domesticity, and was viewed by many as mandatory for the proper education of young,
middle-class women. How does music figure in communicating the accepted gender roles
and stereotypes of today? How does music challenge assumptions about gender
construction?
2. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Clara Schumann were rare among nineteenth-century
composers. As women, they were not encouraged to pursue musical composition as a career
as their family members and close associates did. After reviewing the life of Hensel in your
textbook, briefly research the career of Clara Wieck Schumann. How would you compare
the musical achievements of these women? What connections do you see between the
experiences and circumstances of Hensel and Schumann? How did they differ? How does
the life story of each contribute to understanding musical life in the nineteenth century?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
Presenting Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as an atypical figure within the context of the male –
dominated career path of musical composition during the Romantic nineteenth century can be a
challenge in the classroom. Taking a composer-centered approach to the subject can lead to the
reinforcement of associating genius with gender, a mythology addressed in Christine
Battersby’s Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1990) and Marcia Citron’s Gender and the Musical Canon (Urbana and
Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1993). To combat and challenge these assumptions, try
opening the discussion of Hensel to the gender politics of the Romantic age, thoughtfully
explored in these two sources.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
Hensel: Four Lieder for Piano, Op. 6
C. Schumann: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 17
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Todd, R. Larry. Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn. New York: Oxford University Press,
2010. A thorough and authoritative account of the life and music of Fanny Mendelssohn
Hensel. Chapter 10 (“Domestic Tranquility, 1840–1842”) places The Year in biographical
and stylistic contexts.
Citron, Marcia J. Gender and the Musical Canon. Urbana and Chicago: Illinois University
Press, 1993. Citron tackles the issue of gender, constructions of musical genius, and the
canon. Chapter 2 (“Creativity”) addresses the problems of creative composition and
gender in the works of Hensel and Schumann.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Musical Diaries: Hensel and Programmatic Piano Music (Chapter 36)
I. Women and Music in Nineteenth-Century Society
A. Rigid societal expectations
1. composition discouraged
2. limited public performance
3. crucial as patrons, sponsors, and teachers
B. Great strides in Romantic era: professional musicians, public advocates
1. educational opportunities
a. public conservatories: singers, instrumentalists, composers
b. women also became teachers
2. rise of the piano: socially acceptable performance outlet
3. few as successful composers:
a. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
b. Clara Wieck Schumann
4. influence as patrons:
a. George Sand: Chopin
b. Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein: Liszt
5. presided over musical salons:
a. Fanny Mendelssohn and Bettina von Arnim
II. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and the Piano Miniature
A. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–1847)
1. composer, pianist; raised in Berlin
2. born into highly influential family; sister of Felix Mendelssohn
3. actively discouraged from career in music
4. married court artist, Wilhelm Hensel
5. active as composer and pianist: salon concerts
6. compositions intended for family salon gatherings
7. output: chamber music, over 125 piano works, vocal music, over 250 Lieder
B. A Piano Cycle: The Year (Das Jahr)
1. manuscript discovered in 1989
2. twelve character pieces, one for each month
a. each prefaced by poetic epigram
b. each on different colored paper with painting by Wilhelm Hensel
c. suggests passage of time; seasons of one’s life
3. unified cycle: recurring motives, tonal schemes, references to other composers
4. September: At the River
a. drawing of bare-footed woman by the stream
b. lines from Goethe: “Flow, flow, dear river, / Never will I be happy.”
C. Listening Guide 25: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, September: At the River, from The Year
(Das Jahr) (1841)
1. A-B-A´, brief introduction and coda
2. melancholic mood: haunting, meandering melody
3. slow-paced melody against fast-moving lines and chords
4. rubato, evokes flow of the river
5. daring, distant key areas, very chromatic
6. swelling and decrescendo in dynamics; ends pianissimo