Mozart’s Sister, and Fanny Mendelssohn, Secrets of the Dead

Mozart’s Sister | About the Episode | Secrets of the Dead | PBS

I hope you tune in to learn more about the “unsung” Mozart sister and others who faded into archives. It’s why I blog about them. It’s like every time their contribution to society has been corrected, a chorus of “halleluiahs” are sung in heaven. 

This was a great episode that featured many women composers of the times. The brilliant Mozart daughter had many hidden secrets that have been uncovered in letters and musical scores. The historians dug up much more than Maria Anna’s works, and those of many other women lost to the time. Once she grew into womanhood, she was “put to pasture” so to speak. Many of her compositions of minuets were credited to Wolfgang, when in fact through handwriting analysis, were written by Maria Anna. I love music of all kinds and got exposure early to it, including visits to our local symphony, where I escaped into the music.

Maria Anna Mozart was a musical prodigy just like her younger brother Wolfgang. Although the children toured Europe together, once Maria Anna came of age, she was left behind while her brother became a star. But controversial new evidence suggests she may have contributed to her brother’s earliest works while a global search for her compositions continues.

Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia “Marianne” Mozart (30 July 1751 – 29 October 1829), often nicknamed Nannerl, was a highly regarded musician from Salzburg, Austria. Already in her childhood, she established a remarkable reputation for herself across Europe as a child prodigy. However, her musical career was terminated by her parents, who forced her to stay in Salzburg and look for a future spouse. This did not stop her from utilizing her love and talent for music to teach the piano, as well as supposedly writing her own works. Her brother Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was said to have been greatly influenced by her.

Paying attention to the timelines of earliest published works, it became evident that they worked in collaboration. Salsburg Austria archives have become alive with new discoveries beyond the Mozart’s.

Scholars still to this day cannot agree on whether Maria Anna Mozart is partly responsible for her little brother’s genius. Since their relationship was quite close in their youth, it is likely that they influenced one another musically, where Marianne may have been the dominant part in this dynamic, due to her being several years older than Wolfgang. As the anthropologist Stevan Jackson states, “No musicians develop their art in a vacuum […] Musicians learn by watching other musicians, by being an apprentice, formally or informally.” There is evidence, however, that Marianne did pose as a role model for her brother, certainly taking on a teaching role in the education of the young boy. Researchers also speculate that she collaborated with Wolfgang on his earlier pieces, since composing a symphony is a rather challenging task for any musician, especially one as young as Wolfgang.

There were others who were left out, like Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny whose works were published under her brother’s name. Her story is just as rich and important.
Fanny Mendelssohn’s real-life great-great-great granddaughter turns composer’s… – Classic FM 

She was such an impressive young musician that her composition teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter said of her: “This child really is something special”.
But Fanny wasn’t just a brilliant performer, she was also a composer – like her younger brother Felix.
Unfortunately, Fanny’s father was a firm believer that composition wasn’t a career for women. He said to his daughter: “Music will perhaps become [Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament.

Who was Fanny Mendelssohn, the unsung composer whose music was published under… – Classic FM