Mendelssohn-Hensel: Songs Vol. 1

Craxton, Dorothea, Dorn, Babette

8.570981

She was so totally overshadowed by her famous brother that even today we know little of Fanny Mendelssohn’s output, though she was to write over five hundred works in her short life. Born four years earlier than Felix, she had received much the same musical training that was later given to her brother. Yet her family expected her to accept the woman’s role as a housewife, a life to which she acquiesced on marriage at the age of twenty-four to Wilhelm Hensel, though in private she continued to write.
These songs show that she was not a clone of her brother, the influences coming more from Schubert, particularly in the piano writing. And like Schubert she looked towards the great literary names for her texts—Heine, Gothe, Eichendorff and Ruckert who are all included in this disc. Nor can the songs be sidetracked as salon music, for they are serious and very potent, though many are joyful, Voglein, in den sonn’gen Tagen (Little Bird, on sunny days), being a particularly beautiful song. I am not going to get carried away with praise, but these are songs just as worthy of our attention as many from Schubert, and it is good to note that this is the first volume of a cycle. They are performed by the German duo of Dorothea Craxton and the perceptive accompaniment of Babette Dorn. • David Denton, David's Review Corner, December 2009

CD

Naxos

2.12.2009

747313098170