String Quartet 1834
A Repurposed Gem
Over the summer of 1829, in the months before her marriage to Wilhelm Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn wrote the first two movements and started a third movement of a piano sonata in E-flat Major. She never finished this sonata, but five years later she repurposed the draft into one of her greatest large-scale works: her String Quartet in E-flat Major (H277).
In 1834, now a wife and mother, Fanny had been busy reviving her Sunday concerts, which she programmed and often conducted. Over the summer she took a break from the concerts and reworked the first two movements of her five-year-old piano sonata draft for two violins, a viola, and a cello, and added a new third and fourth movement.
Despite the clear influence of Beethoven (Harp Quartet op. 74) and her brother Felix Mendelssohn (op.12 quartet and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), Fanny’s string quartet exhibits a tonal ambiguity and freedom of form uncharacteristic of her classical training, which Felix objected to. Fanny deeply valued Felix’s critiques—as he did hers—and her confidence in her ability to approach large-scale works was shaken by his criticism. She wrote to Felix:
“It’s not so much a certain way of composing that is lacking as it is a certain approach to life, and as a result of this shortcoming, my lengthy things die in their youth of decrepitude; I lack the ability to sustain ideas properly and give them the needed consistency. Therefore lieder suit me best, in which, if need be, merely a pretty idea without much potential for development can suffice.”
It is a shame that Fanny and Felix were not able to appreciate the innovative expressiveness of this work. If they had been, Fanny may have left us with more chamber works. It wasn’t until 1847—13 years later and the year of her death—that she wrote her next and last multi-movement chamber work: the Piano Trio in d minor.