Fanny Hensel: Keyboard-to-Quartet Lecture-Concert

This lecture-concert explores the transformation of Fanny Hensel’s compositions between genres: from solo piano to string quartet.

Fanny Hensel was one of the 19th century's greatest composers, but her achievements have long been overshadowed by her younger brother, Felix Mendelssohn. This event will be one part lecture about Hensel's life and musical influences, and two parts performance of her piano and chamber music. By the end, you will have a sense of Hensel's incredible music and who she was as a person.

The program features Hensel’s unfinished fourth Piano Sonata in E-flat Major and her masterful and much-loved String Quartet in E-flat Major, which she derived from her unfinished sonata. You will also hear new string quartet arrangements of two of Hensel’s brilliant but little-known neo-Baroque fugues, as well as arrangements of her published lieder.

Musical performances will be connected with interstitial talks on Fanny Hensel’s life, her unique harmonic language (which her brother Felix described as “too much”), and the origins and evolution of her string quartet, delivered by Henselpushers.

Program:

Hensel: "Die frühen Gräber" for String Quartet (arranged by Lewis Patzner)
Hensel: Lied, op.8 no.2 for String Quartet (arranged by Lewis Patzner)
Hensel: Fugata for String Quartet (arranged by Henselpushers)
Hensel: Fuga for String Quartet (arranged by Henselpushers)
Hensel: Piano Sonata in E-flat Major (unfinished)
Hensel: String Quartet in E-flat Major

Performers:

The Town Quartet
Monica Chew, piano
Henselpushers, interstitial talks