Fanny Mendelssohn Essentials

Although 19th-century composer Fanny Mendelssohn wasn't as well known in her lifetime as her brother Felix, her music shows an equal mastery of the rhapsodic, emotive style that would come to be known as German Romanticism. Her compositions for piano, such as the Lied Op. 6 and 4 Songs for Piano, Op. 2, turned the instrument into a vessel for boundless melody and meticulous polyphony, while songs like “März” and “Blumenlied” bear deeply impassioned lyricism. Her talents reached a tempestuous apex in orchestral works like Oratorium nach den Bildern der Bibel.