Transitions 1829-1832

Reunion, Separation, Marriage & Motherhood

“The commencement of the second half of my life stands before me,” Fanny Hensel wrote in her newly-initiated diary the first week of 1829. She sensed correctly that she was about to experience several major life transitions, and seems to have begun her journal at this time in order to capture those experiences. Between late 1828 and mid 1830, Fanny was reunited with the love of her life, separated from her best friend and collaborator, and became a wife and mother.

Fanny’s love interest Wilhelm Hensel returned to Berlin in the fall of 1828 after five years studying and working as an artist in Rome. During their separation, Fanny’s mother Lea did not allow Wilhelm to write directly to her daughter; Lea wanted her daughter to live her life and grow as a person without becoming a lovesick, wistful girl. While Fanny and Wilhelm were excited to reunite, the two had naturally grown apart, and they had to renegotiate their relationship in light of the growth each had experienced. In early 1829 during this period of reintegrating Wilhelm in to her social circle, Fanny wrote H229—a piano piece in the song-without-words style (a term which Fanny coined around this time).

An even more major disruption in Fanny’s life came in April 1829, when her brother Felix departed on a several-months-long trip to London to establish his career internationally. The primary challenge of Felix’s absence for Fanny was the distance it put between her and her best friend and closest collaborator. But it must also have been difficult for her to watch her younger brother and creative equal get to travel abroad and gain recognition as a conductor, performer, and composer while she rarely got to leave home. Fanny wrote H239 during Felix’s absence.

On October 3, 1829 Fanny and Wilhelm were married. Felix had been injured a couple weeks earlier in London and so could not travel back to Berlin for the wedding. Felix’s injury also prevented him from composing, and he was unable to write the processional music for Fanny’s wedding as he had promised. So Fanny wrote her own processional (H242) a few days before the wedding; it was her first work for organ. Then, unable to find the score of the piece she had planned to use as a recessional, she composed her own recessional (H243) the night before her wedding; it would be her last completed work for organ.

Fanny became pregnant not long after the wedding. She wrote H251 shortly after first feeling the baby move in March 1830. But there were soon complications with the pregnancy. Fanny was put on bed rest, expecting it to last a couple months, but the baby was born several weeks early. Few expected the extremely premature baby to live. But he did, and he would be Fanny and Wilhelm’s only surviving child. He was named Felix Ludwig Sebastian after his mother’s three favorite composers.

Collection update, April 2024:

Two new works from this era have been added. A piano Fantasy (H253) from October 1830, a few months after Sebastian was born, that combines a wide range of moods; and a “Duet to be sung with the fingers” for solo piano (H269) written in 1832, when Fanny reunited with her brother Felix after years apart.