A Midsummer Night’s Gene: The familial Neurological Illness of Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1805–1847) is widely regarded as one of the musical geniuses of the Romantic period. A prodigy akin to Mozart, Mendelssohn composed piano works, symphonies, and concertos at an early age but died young, at 38. His death has been attributed to neurological disease, but the mystery of his diagnosis is amplified by the fact that his sisters died under similar circumstances, including the renowned composer, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Mendelssohn died after years of suffering from headaches, earaches, and mood disturbances. In the final year of his life, his acute decline was marked by stepwise, progressive neurologic deficits: gait disturbance, loss of sensation in the hands, partial paralysis, and, finally, loss of consciousness. The similar pattern of disease within his family suggests an underlying genetic link, though this may be multifactorial in nature. We present a thorough, posthumous differential diagnosis for Mendelssohn's illness, given his medical history, the familial pattern, and hints from within his music. Possible diagnoses include ruptured cerebral aneurysm with resultant subarachnoid hemorrhage, familial cerebral cavernous malformation, and cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL). Continued research into Mendelssohn's life may yield more information about his illness, death, and possibly true diagnosis.

“How Beautiful It Sounds!”: The Lieder and Sonntagsmusiken of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

Throughout her lifetime, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was primarily known as the sister of the musical genius, Felix Mendelssohn, as the daughter of her distinguished parents, Lea and Abraham Mendelssohn and as the wife of her artistic husband, August Wilhelm Hensel. Today, Hensel is remembered for her remarkable musical talents and a wide breadth of compositions. Though often passed over as a woman in the nineteenth-century, Fanny Hensel played a key role in the musical life of the city of Berlin. Hensel’s musical voice was defined by her comprehensive musical education and through her Sonntagsmusiken (translated “Sunday Musicales”). In the next generation, British author Virginia Woolf shed light on the obstacles to a female artist’s life. In the essay, A Room of One’s Own, Woolf outlined the main elements necessary to create art: financial security and a room to one’s self. For Hensel, financial security was ensured through her family, yielding for her a rich musical education. Hensel was given a private space for her creative work in an adjacent building called the Gartenhaus. This paper investigates how Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s educational and performance opportunities shaped her compositional voice and circumscribed her influence on nineteenth-century Berlin musical society.