A Requiem for Fanny: The Final Creative Efforts of Felix Mendelssohn

Abstract

Felix Mendelssohn entered a state of intense depression and mourning upon hearing that his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel passed away in her Leipzig home on May 14, 1847, after suffering a stroke. Composition, a key element of the personal and collegial relationship between Hensel and her brother, served as a necessary outlet for his grief, from the time of Hensel’s death until his own passing only six months later. Communication of grief through music developed substantially throughout the nineteenth century, and this notion of suffering within art collocated with the modern labels for the grieving process created by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, show how Mendelssohn experienced the four initial stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression), but died before ever reaching the final (acceptance) stage. While acknowledging ambiguity around Mendelssohn’s intentions for the works, I argue that his final compositions– the String Quartet no 6. In F Minor, and the last two songs from his Sechs Lieder (no. 5, “Auf der Wanderschaft”, and no. 6, “Nachtlied”)–are “requiems for Fanny” that parallel these initial stages of grief.