The Mendelssohn Family – Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn

Together with the Israeli soprano Chen Reiss, the JCOM, conducted by Daniel Grossmann, discovers works by the fascinating composer Fanny Hensel and her famous brother Felix Mendelssohn. The congenial siblings Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn took very different paths. While Fanny's musical talent, according to her father, could only be "an adornment, never the basic bass of your being and doing", Felix's father, himself the son of the famous Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, paved the way for a career as a musician. Fanny was only allowed to compose and perform her works in private. Only in recent years have many of Fanny Hensel's works been rediscovered. " Soprano Chen Reiss agrees on this point, and brings her own beguiling brand of elegant, operatic flair to a new album." (The Opera Queen)