Fanny Hensel's Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11
Composed in Berlin near the end of her life and published posthumously in 1850, the D minor trio of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel stands beside her brother's Op. 49 as the other Mendelssohn piano trio.
When concert programmes list a "Mendelssohn piano trio," they almost always mean one of the two mature trios of Felix Mendelssohn. Yet the family produced a third major work in the genre, written in the same key of D minor by Felix's older sister, Fanny Hensel, born Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1805–1847). Long overshadowed by her brother's career and by conventions that kept most of her output unpublished in her lifetime, her Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11 deserves a place beside her brother's two trios.
The Elder Sister
Fanny Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg on 14 November 1805, the elder sister of Felix (1809–1847), and died in Berlin on 14 May 1847 at forty-one. Drawn together from childhood by their shared love of music and exceptional gifts, the siblings maintained a lifelong musical partnership. As the Library of Congress Music Division notes, her talents were nearly as formidable as her brother's, even though her gender barred her from the social opportunities and support available to him.
From early in their lives until her death, Felix regularly submitted his compositions to Fanny's discerning musical eye and ear, taking her critical advice to heart and never hesitating to modify or excise material she found questionable. Felix called his older sister "Minerva," after the Roman goddess of wisdom, for her musical and intellectual insight. Hearing her trio beside his is hearing the other side of that lifelong dialogue.
A Composer at Home
Societal constraints of the era precluded women from pursuing musical professions. Her father, Abraham Mendelssohn, made that reality clear in an 1820 letter to her, stating that while music would perhaps become Felix's profession, "for you it can and must only be an ornament, never the basis of your being and doing." The following year she met the painter Wilhelm Hensel (1794–1861), whom she married in Berlin in 1829.
Although she settled into the domestic roles prescribed by nineteenth-century society, her creativity flourished in the more intimate genres of keyboard music, choral works, chamber pieces and song. Over her lifetime she wrote more than five hundred compositions, including over two hundred fifty songs alone. Before her death she witnessed changing attitudes toward women in music that resulted in a handful of her works appearing in print, fulfilling her lifelong dream of being considered a serious composer and making her among the first women composers to have works published.
The Trio in Four Movements
Her Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11 (score and parts on its IMSLP score page), runs about twenty-six minutes and is cast in four movements for violin, cello and piano:
- I. Allegro molto vivace — the opening movement in D minor, marked very lively.
- II. Andante espressivo — the expressive slow movement.
- III. Lied: Allegretto — in place of a traditional scherzo, a concise movement titled Lied (song), bringing the spirit of her vocal music into the piano-trio form.
- IV. Finale: Allegretto moderato — the closing movement, at a moderate allegretto.
Replacing the scherzo with a Lied is a signature touch: where her brother's D minor trio offers fairy-music lightness, Hensel turns toward song.
Published After Her Death
As recorded in the Neue Deutsche Biographie, after a second journey to Italy in 1845 Fanny Hensel led a withdrawn, creative life in Berlin, and the D minor piano trio was the main work of that final period. She died in Berlin on 14 May 1847 before it could appear in print. Three years later, in 1850, Breitkopf und Härtel published the first edition in Leipzig as Op. 11 (plate 8212; reprinted in Munich by W. Wollenweber in 1984).
The trio soon reached the concert room: a public performance by Wilhelm Taubert, Ganz and Zimmermann is noted in the 11 February 1852 issue of the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung (page 52). Numerous other unpublished works of hers survive in the Mendelssohn-Archiv of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.
Toward Brahms
Evaluating the music of her final Berlin period after 1845, the Neue Deutsche Biographie hears in the D minor trio a work that already points ahead to Johannes Brahms. That judgement sets the work on the road to the later Romantic piano trio, and it belongs in the company of Clara Schumann's G minor trio and the trios of Robert Schumann and Brahms.
Hearing the Two D Minor Trios Together
Paired with Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 (MWV Q 29) — completed on 23 September 1839, first performed in Leipzig on 1 February 1840 by Ferdinand David, Carl Wittmann and the composer, and published in 1840 by Breitkopf und Härtel, as detailed on IMSLP — Fanny Hensel's Op. 11 makes a natural concert and listening companion. Both works share the key of D minor, the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf und Härtel, and a four-movement plan of similar span: about twenty-eight minutes for Op. 49 and about twenty-six minutes for Op. 11.
Yet each sibling shapes the medium differently. Felix's Molto Allegro agitato, Andante con moto tranquillo, Scherzo: Leggiero e vivace and Finale: Allegro assai appassionato prize quicksilver propulsion, while Fanny's Allegro molto vivace, Andante espressivo, Lied: Allegretto and Finale: Allegretto moderato favour songful breadth. For more on following the three instruments in performance, see the listening guide and the survey of recordings.