German pianist and composer, Fanny Hensel's 216th Birthday
Fanny Hensel, was born Fanny Zippora Mendelssohn, on 14 November, 1805, in Hamburg, Germany, into an upper-class family. At 13, Hensel astonished a private audience in Berlin, with a memorized performance, of 24 preludes from Bach’s masterpiece, “The Well-Tempered Clavier” (1722-1742).
Although her public image was overshadowed by her brother Felix’s career, she devoted herself to developing the Mendelssohnian style, in over 450 compositions.
At age 41, she published Opus 1, the first original work published in her name, and among the first published compositions by a woman, paving the way for women, to pursue a classical tradition, historically dominated by men.
In 2010, musicologists uncovered the Easter Sonata, a masterful, solo piano piece, written by Hensel, when she was 22 years old, that had been mistakenly attributed to her brother. The piece was performed under her name for the first time in 2017, nearly 190 years after its composition.
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