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The ‘Power of Class’ in a New Perspective: A Comparison of the Compositional Careers of Fanny Hensel and Josephine Lang
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2011
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In her article ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel’, Nancy Reich draws attention to the significance of social station as a constraint on Fanny Hensel’s musical career. While she acknowledges the existence of other barriers (such as religion, family traditions, and the influence on the Mendelssohns of Enlightenment philosophy), Reich emphasizes the role of contemporary expectations for upper-class women in limiting the scope of Hensel’s public musical activity. The identification of the ‘power of class’ as a factor in the careers of nineteenth-century women composers is an important contribution that deserves further investigation. Reich suggests a productive avenue for the exploration of this topic when she briefly compares Hensel’s career to those of two pianist-composers of lower social standing: Clara Schumann and Marie Pleyel. In this article, I pursue this avenue by comparing Hensel's career to that of another contemporary woman composer of a class lower than hers, namely Josephine Lang.
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References
1 Reich, Nancy, ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel’, in Mendelssohn and his World, ed. Todd, R. Larry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991): 86–99.Google Scholar
2 Ibid.: 91–2.
3 Lang has been the focus of much of my recent research; see Krebs, Harald, ‘Josephine Lang and the Schumanns’, in Nineteenth-Century Music: Selected Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference, ed. Samson, Jim and Zon, Bennett (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002): 345–66Google Scholar ; ‘Irregularités hypermetriques dans les chansons de Josephine Lang’, Revue de musique classique et romantique (October 1999, appeared 2003): 33–57 ; ‘Neues zu Josephine Langs Mänchener Kreis’, Literatur in Bayern 72 (June 2003): 32–41Google Scholar ; ‘Josephine Langs “Eichthal-Lieder”’, Musik in Bayern. Halbjahresschrift der Gesellschaft fär Bayerische Musikgeschichte e.V., vol. 65/66 (2003, appeared 2004): 61–83Google Scholar ; ‘Josephine Lang (1815–1880)’, in Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, ed. Glickman, Sylvia and Schleifer, Martha Furman (New Haven, CT: G.K. Hall, 2004)Google Scholar : vol. 7 (Composers born 1800–1899, Vocal Music), 113–142; ‘Hypermeter and Hypermetric Irregularity in the Songs of Josephine Lang’, in Engaging Music. Essays in Music Analysis, ed. Stein, Deborah (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); 13–29Google Scholar . A detailed biography of Lang, with numerous analyses of her songs, is found in Krebs, Harald and Krebs, Sharon, Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.
4 Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Berlin, 13 Jul. 1841; Citron, Marcia J., The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, Collected, Edited and Translated with Introductory Essays and Notes (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1987): 308–309Google Scholar , with German original, 582–3. I have slightly revised Citron's translation. Other translations in this paper are my own.
5 Wärttembergische Landesbibliothek, Mus. fol. 53a, 22. The song is identified as ‘Italien. Von Mendelssohn Bartholdy’.
6 Hiller, Ferdinand, ‘Josephine Lang, die Lieder-Componistin’, Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1868), 125.Google Scholar
7 Hensel's first biographer was her son Sebastian, whose book on the Mendelssohn family contains much material about his mother; see Hensel, Sebastian, Die Familie Mendelssohn, 1729–1847, nach Briefen und Tagebächern, 3 vols (Berlin, 1879Google Scholar ; repr. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1994). Lang's youngest son, Heinrich Adolph Kästlin, wrote a biographical essay about his mother just after her death; see Kästlin, Heinrich Adolph, ‘Josefine Lang: Lebensabriss’, Sammlung musikalischer Vorträge, III, ed. Waldersee, Paul (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1881): 51–103Google Scholar . These biographies have formed the basis of most contemporary writings about the two composers.
8 Tillard, Françoise, Fanny Mendelssohn, trans. Naish, Camille (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1996): 308–309Google Scholar . Tillard's book is my main source of biographical information about Hensel.
9 Felix Mendelssohn to his family, Stuttgart, 7 November 1831 (Mendelssohn MSS, New York Public Library; quoted in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’: 59–60, where the letter is mistakenly dated ‘6 October’).
10 Felix Mendelssohn wrote to his family about his teaching of Lang in his letter of 7 November 1831. Lang's friend, the composer and pianist Stephen Heller, specified the number of hours of study with Mendelssohn in a letter to Robert Schumann, dated 17 August 1836; the letter is published in Kersten, Ursula, ed., Stephen Heller, Briefe an Robert Schumann, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XXXVI (Musikwissenschaft), vol. 37 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988): 58–9Google Scholar . Among Lang's musical autographs held at the Wärttembergische Landesbibliothek are two undated pages of species counterpoint exercises. Larry Todd has informed me that these would not have stemmed from lessons with Mendelssohn (he did not teach species counterpoint). It is therefore possible that Lang had some theory lessons with someone else.
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14 Kimber, Marian Wilson, ‘The “Suppression” of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography’, 19th-Century Music 26/2 (2002): 124.Google Scholar
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16 One contact with another musician that did have a significant impact was with the composer and pianist Stephen Heller, forged during Lang's sojourns in nearby Augsburg in the late 1830s. Through Heller she became familiar with the piano music of Robert Schumann; Heller wrote to Schumann that Lang took ‘untold pleasure in [his] Intermezzi [op. 4]’ and other works, which she described as ‘unfathomably original’. Heller to Schumann, 26 Aug. 1837, in Kersten, , ed., Stephen Heller, Briefe an Robert Schumann: 104Google Scholar.
17 Josephine Lang to Ferdinand Hiller, Täbingen, 27 Apr. 1868; Hiller MSS, Historical Archive of the City of Cologne: 37 (369).
18 Mendelssohn, Felix, Letters, trans. Selden-Goth, Gisella (New York, 1946): 82Google Scholar ; quoted in Werner, Roberta, ‘The Songs of Josephine Caroline Lang: The Expression of a Life’, PhD diss. (Minnesota, 1992): 41–2Google Scholar.
19 Schmoll-Bartel, Jutta, ‘Bärgerliches Konzertleben,’ in Schmid, Manfred H., ed., Friedrich Silcher 1789–1860: Die Verbärgerlichung der Musik im 19. Jahrhundert [Katalog der Ausstellung zum 200. Geburtstag des ersten Täbinger Universitätsmusikdirektors] (Täbingen: Kulturamt, 1989): 78–87Google Scholar . A programme of Liszt's recital is reproduced on p. 84.
20 For example, 14 March 1845, unpublished poem accompanying a gift of a Felix Mendelssohn score, and 14 March 1855, unpublished poem entitled ‘Bach’, accompanying a gift of preludes and fugues (Wärttembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. hist. 4° 437, Fasz. 10c, nos. 136 and 128 respectively).
21 Reich, , ‘The Power of Class’: 88–92.Google Scholar
22 Ibid.: 89.
23 Köstlin, , ‘Josefine Lang’: 61.Google Scholar
24 Mendelssohn wrote to his family (in the aforementioned letter of 7 November 1831) that he and his friend Adolph Bernhard Marx had ‘drummed up a racket’ about Lang in Munich a year earlier.
25 Lang to Mendelssohn, Munich, 19 Feb. 1841 (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Mendelssohn ‘Green Books’ XIII, 83). It is not clear which publication Lang meant – possibly her op. 8, which had appeared with Haslinger in Vienna in 1838.
26 Kistner mentioned in a letter to Mendelssohn of 26 July 1844 that Lang had sent him two sets of songs, which he would discuss with Mendelssohn when they next met. Mendelssohn must have supported the publication, for the songs opp. 11 and 12 did appear with Kistner in 1844 (Bodleian Library, Oxford, Mendelssohn ‘Green Books’ XX, 33).
27 Mendelssohn enthusiastically confirmed his acceptance of the dedication in a letter to Kistner on 18 July 1844: ‘Of course I accept this dedication with the very greatest pleasure … for even if the composer did not take this [positive] response for granted or even find it superfluous, you certainly could have done so.’ Elvers, Rudolf, ed., Briefe an deutsche Verleger (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co., 1968): 327–8Google Scholar.
28 Lang to Mendelssohn, 19 Feb. 1841. Bodleian Library, Mendelssohn ‘Green Books’ XIII, 83.
29 The events surrounding Heller's championing of Josephine Lang can be gleaned from Heller's correspondence with Robert Schumann, published in Kersten, ed., Stephen Heller, Briefe an Robert Schumann. Schumann's publication of Lang's Heine setting ‘Traumbild’ appeared in the supplement to the November 1838 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift fär Musik. The review appeared in the same issue; it is reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften äber Musik und Musiker von Robert Schumann, 5th edition, ed. Kreisig, Martin (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914): vol. 2, 334Google Scholar.
30 Evidence of his continuing support during Lang's marriage can be found in his letters to Lang and Köstlin. For instance, in a letter to Köstlin dated 12 January 1843, Mendelssohn inquired if Lang had ‘composed new songs or anything else’, and expressed the hope that Köstlin's next letter would include a composition by Lang; Paul and Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy, eds, Briefe aus den Jahren 1830 bis 1847 von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1870): 501Google Scholar . On 19 July 1844, Mendelssohn wrote to Lang in connection with the aforementioned dedication of her op. 12, ‘You have no idea, what happy hours you have given me and everyone who truly loves music through your songs, and how grateful I am, therefore, that you wish to add my name to one of your song collections!’ This letter is published in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’: 95–6.
31 In a letter to Lang, dated 7 July 1847, Hauser describes his frustrating contacts with numerous publishers on Lang's behalf; Mus. ep. Hauser 6, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.
32 Hiller, Ferdinand, ‘Josephine Lang, die Lieder-Componistin’, Kölner Zeitung, 148 (29 May 1867): 3Google Scholar ; repr. in Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1868): 116–36Google Scholar . Although Hiller was unable to write a biographical essay about Lang before 1867, he brought her name before the public in an article on Mendelssohn's Reisebriefe in 1861, in which he devoted much space to Lang and to Mendelssohn's high opinion of her (‘Mendelssohn's Briefe,’ Kölner Zeitung, 250 (9 Sep. 1861): 1–2Google Scholar ; repr. in Hiller, Ferdinand, Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit: vol. 1, 277–305)Google Scholar . For a discussion of the latter article, see Krebs, Sharon, ‘Josephine Lang (1815–1880): Die Jahre in Töbingen’, in Klangwelten, Lebenswelten: Komponistinnen in Södwestdeutschland, ed. Rebmann, Martina and Nögele, Reiner (Stuttgart and Karlsruhe: Badische und Wörttembergische Landesbibliotheken, 2004): 72–3Google Scholar.
33 Oscar von Samson-Himmelstierna to Ferdinand Hiller, Töbingen, 21 October 1876 (Hiller papers, 45[713], Historic Archive of the City of Cologne).
34 It is possible that Himmelstierna was involved in the publication of a collection of 40 of Lang's songs by Breitkopf & Hörtel shortly after her death (in 1882).
35 Hensel, Fanny, Tageböcher, 129 (20 Apr. 1840), llGoogle Scholar . 22–3; quoted in Tillard, , Fanny Mendelssohn: 280Google Scholar.
36 Hensel, Fanny, Tageböcher, 226 (15 May 1843), llGoogle Scholar . 14–15; quoted in Tillard, , Fanny Mendelssohn: 306Google Scholar.
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40 Darmstadt, Universitöts- und Landesbibliothek, Anton 31d, Br./Hensel, Fanny, 1–6. The first letter is undated. The others are dated 5 May 1843 to 26 April 1846. The reference to transposition is in no. 4 (Berlin, 29 Nov. 1843).
41 Chorley, Henry, Modern German Music (1854; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973): 231Google Scholar . Quoted in Kimber, ‘The “Suppression” of Fanny Mendelssohn’: 124. The same quotation appeared previously as the preamble to Nancy Reich, ‘The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel’, in Todd, ed., Mendelssohn and his World. Kimber and Reich extracted the quote from Lampadius, Wilhelm A., Life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, trans. Gage, William L. (Boston: Longwood Press, 1865)Google Scholar , to which Chorley's discussion of Hensel is appended (pp. 210–11).
42 Hensel, Fanny, Tageböcher, 274, ll. 10–12.Google Scholar
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