A Study on the Dual Influences of Fanny Mendelssohn’s Creative Environment and Felix Mendelssohn
Abstract
This study examines the complex intersection of gender, family dynamics, and artistic identity in the compositional life of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–1847). Against the backdrop of nineteenth-century bourgeois patriarchy, where women were confined to the private sphere, Fanny’s creative career was profoundly shaped—and constrained—by her brother Felix Mendelssohn’s aesthetic influence and social authority. Using comparative and textual analysis of Fanny’s unpublished raw evidence of letter text, alongside their extensive correspondence, this research investigates how mentorship, affection, and patriarchal values coexisted within their sibling relationship. The findings reveal that Felix’s guidance simultaneously nurtured Fanny’s technical mastery and reinforced her dependence, generating a form of “stolen autonomy” that defined her artistic self-conception. Her hyper reliance on his approval functioned as both inspiration and inhibition, illustrating the emotional mechanisms of gendered control in nineteenth- century musical culture. Ultimately, this paper argues that Hensel’s later works constitute acts of subtle resistance, reclaiming creative autonomy within a restrictive domestic order.
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