Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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With a reawakened interest in the music of forgotten women composers, evidenced by the numerous collections and books published over recent years, it’s no wonder that the music of Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy, later Hensel, (1805-1847) is enjoying a long-overdue renaissance.
Fanny Hensel’s “Ostersonate” (Easter Sonata) was composed in 1828, but remarkably, the recent edition from Bärenreiter is actually the first ever urtext version of this beguiling music, based on an autograph which was long inaccessible due to being in private hands.
Combining excellence with innovation, the typically superb Bärenreiter critical edition itself is accompanied by an included second volume, which offers a complete facsimile reproduction in colour of Fanny’s autograph manuscript.
Nearly two centuries after its composition, it’s surely now time to rediscover and celebrate this tremendous work, which is suitable for performance by players at associate diploma level and beyond…
Crucifixion and Resurrection
In 1972, the French pianist Eric Heidsieck released the world-premiere recording of an unknown Sonate de Pâques (Easter Sonata) attributed to Mendelssohn, understood to mean Felix Mendelssohn. At the time, there was no documented evidence for Felix having composed such a work, and in any case the manuscript immediately disappeared back into private possession.
In his Preface to Marie Rolf’s new Bärenreiter edition, R. Larry Todd picks up the story:
“For twenty years the potential addition of an Easter Sonata to Mendelssohn’s oeuvre remained an unconfirmed, if intriguing proposition. Then, in 1992, the pianist Françoise Tillard renewed attention to the mystery, when she noted that Fanny Mendelssohn (married in 1829 to the painter Wilhelm Hensel) had referred to an Ostersonate of her own composition in her diary on 13 April 1829…”
Todd unpacks the tale of how the manuscript and composition were subsequently authenticated beyond doubt, and the story can be read in more academic detail here.
An Easter Story
We now know that the exact date when Fanny completed the first movement of the Sonata was actually Easter Sunday, April 7, 1828 (specified in the manuscript), and in the first instance we might speculate that this was a reason for the title.
However, there are clear programmatic elements to the second and fourth movements in particular, linking the musical narrative to that of the Easter story. And this is not the only respect in which this work breaks with the traditions of the classical Sonata.
Indeed, Fanny was a true musical innovator, her works from the 1820’s also including the Sonata o Capriccio in F minor for piano and Sonata o Fantasia in G minor for cello and piano, both of which similarly explore the boundaries between the conventional sonata and other musical genres.
Romantic Innovation
The Easter Sonata begins traditionally enough with an Allegro assai moderato in the home key of A major. The first theme has a descending motif contrasted by an ascending second theme in the dominant, a third musical idea subsequently heralding the climax of the movement. By now, conventional “sonata form” has largely been abandoned, the expected Development and Recapitulation sections failing to materialise before the movement ends in an ecstatic flurry of notes.
The second movement, a Largo e molto espressivo in the key of E minor, soon reminds us of Fanny’s enthusiasm for polyphony, and the central section proves to be a fully-fledged fugue. The movement perhaps describes the passion of the Christ, its harmonic leanings and style recalling Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which had been revived for its first performance in a century by Felix Mendelssohn the previous month.
The third movement is a jaunty scherzo in E major, and shares the mood of Felix Mendelssohn’s popular Rondo Capriccioso Op.14, which was composed in the same year. This extended piece is perhaps my favourite movement of the Sonata, and I hope you will enjoy this recent recording by Isata Kanneh-Mason:
The Finale is an agitated Allegro con strepito in the key of A minor, the most demanding of the four movements, the most overtly programmatic, and the most innovative in its form.
The magnificent fury of the movement’s main theme eventually gives way to an extended coda in A major, marked Lento. This blissful conclusion to the whole work is punctuated by an appearance of the chorale melody, Christe, du Lamm Gottes (Christ, Lamb of God).
The Bärenreiter Edition
As mentioned in my introduction, Bärenreiter’s edition comes as two included volumes. The first appears in the publisher’s standard large format urtext edition house style, with luxury cream paper within. The Preface by scholar R. Larry Todd is followed by Notes on the Edition by the editor Marie Rolf. Both are readable and informative, and appear in English and German.
The score itself offers 31 pages of well-spaced and superbly engraved music, and an Appendix offers the second version of the fourth movement for those interested in its alternative reading. No fingering suggestions are offered, either by composer or editor. The volume concludes with a detailed four-page Critical Commentary.
This takes on even greater interest when considered alongside the second volume, which is included as a separate pullout book in landscape format, and delivers a full reproduction of the autograph manuscript from the Robert Owen Lehman Collection.
Fanny Hensel’s handwriting is neat, although I would not chance trying to play from this score. Where its value lies, beyond that of understandable curiosity, is in the ability to place it next to Rolf’s modern urtext edition for comparison.
The facsimile thus further elevates what would already be a superb edition of the Easter Sonata into a still more compelling music publishing milestone.
Concluding Thoughts
If the correct attribution of this Easter Sonata to Fanny Hensel has brought it wider attention than it received when it was thought to be the work of her brother Felix, we can but rejoice. Far from being a work that belongs in the vault, this brilliant Sonata reminds us of the fertile experimentation of the Early Romantic period, and is an absolute gem.
As this is so obviously a worthy addition to our performance repertoire, we must rejoice that Bärenreiter have released such a superbly scholarly and elegantly presented urtext edition.
Without doubt, this is a landmark publication of a wrongly overlooked and genuinely brilliant Romantic piano masterpiece, and for advanced pianists, this Bärenreiter edition is surely an essential purchase.
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