You know, I'd always sort of figured Fanny Mendelssohn must have been something to have been remembered in "classical" music history, a largely male-dominated world. I'm doing my final project on her, so I also figured I would be able to find more on her than I'd ever imagined.
GET THIS: I found this book in the school library, The Reception of Bach's Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms - looked pretty cool, so I checked it out for fun. Since it is wholly impossible to write seriously about Felix without at least mention of Fanny or two, it didn't shock me to find her mentioned a few times.
It DID, however, shock me to find out that she had memorized the entire (probably first book, it doesn't specify) Well-Tempered Clavichord by Bach and played it for her dad at the age of thirteen. I mean, I knew she was amazing and all...but wow. Wow. What's more, it would appear that during the 1820s she kept track of what Bach (mostly organ) scores the Mendelssohn family owned (they were rich, after all). I also didn't realize that Felix and Fanny's mother and aunt both studied with Kirnberger, one of Bach's pupils.
I've found myself a book for my bibliography!...
This book also mentions that while Fanny never took organ lessons (I'll have to cross check, but it wouldn't really surprise me), she would often to with Felix to his and probably picked it up that way. Apparently when Felix was playing in London, there were two women that I think he did end up meeting who were "prominent church organists there" - blast if I can remember their names off the top of my head! - another thing I found strange, as so many people took Paul's words that "women should keep their silence in the Church" seriously for so long.
No comments:
Post a Comment