Fanny.The.Other.Mendelssohn.2023.108EB Movie Subtitles

1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 3 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,120 (BIRDS CHIRPING) (DISTANT CLIP-CLOP OF HORSES) 4 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:32,560 (DISTANT BELLS RINGING) 5 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:36,520 (BIG BEN CHIMES) 6 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,400 (HORSE NEIGHING) 7 00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:49,840 SHEILA HAYMAN: Buckingham Palace, London, 1842. 8 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:52,640 (BIG BEN BONGS) 9 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,560 SHEILA: 'The superstar German composer, Felix Mendelssohn, 10 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:06,120 is invited here to play his famous songs.' 11 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:08,400 (BELLS CHIMING) 12 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,600 (WOMAN SINGING) # Schoner und schoner # Schmuckt sich der Plan 13 00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:17,320 # Schmeichelnde Lufte # Wehen mich an 14 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,760 # Fort aus der Prosa # Lasten und Muh' 15 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,520 SHEILA: 'The singer is Queen Victoria herself.' 16 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:27,400 # Goldner die Sonne # Blauer die Luft 17 00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:31,920 'And the song she chooses as her favourite is called Italien. 18 00:01:31,960 --> 00:01:34,080 It's a huge honour for Felix.' 19 00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:38,280 # Dort an dem Maishalm Schwellend von Saft 20 00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:41,960 # Straubt sich der Aloe Storrische Kraft 21 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,040 # Olbaum, Cypresse Blond du, du braun 22 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:47,720 # Nickt ihr wie zierliche 23 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:49,880 'But Felix has a problem. 24 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,240 He didn't actually write this song. 25 00:01:56,560 --> 00:02:00,400 It was composed by his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. 26 00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:07,040 Fanny was my great-great-great grandmother 27 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,160 but I knew very little about her musical genius. 28 00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:13,280 Her story had been overshadowed by her brother 29 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:16,760 and overlooked by a male-dominated musical world. 30 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:18,400 But looking for clues, 31 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:20,840 I discovered she has nine Twitter accounts. 32 00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:24,600 Unusual for somebody who's been dead for 175 years. 33 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,960 So, I realised I wasn't the only person interested in her.' 34 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:31,000 Third clap. 35 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:34,040 Roland Schmidt-Hensel in the Staatsbibliothek. 36 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,880 'And I discovered an army of fans 37 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:39,880 determined to rescue her from oblivion.' 38 00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:43,440 They have all of these, yes. Oh, that's amazing. 39 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:46,160 ROBERT LEHMAN: Wow. 40 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:48,880 What is THAT? 41 00:02:48,920 --> 00:02:51,440 Holy crap. 42 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,400 I've never heard anything like it. 43 00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:57,800 ISATA KANNEH-MASON: I imagine her to have been 44 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,400 very stubborn, thinking, you know, "This is how I feel. 45 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,560 This is what I want to write." And not being held back 46 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:06,040 and just writing something really expressive. 47 00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:10,600 'The search for Fanny took me from London to Berlin, 48 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:12,160 and Paris to New York. 49 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,360 And revealed the hunt for a long-lost masterpiece, 50 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:17,640 the Easter Sonata. 51 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,960 I discovered a story of intense sibling drama, joy and tragedy. 52 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,320 A woman who defied convention but dared not defy her family. 53 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:33,320 This is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, a very modern woman, 54 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:36,600 who just happened to live two centuries ago.' 55 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:38,280 (SWEEPING PIANO NOTES) 56 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,160 TIM PARKER-LANGSTON: Every time she sat down to write, 57 00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,560 she was doing so in a sort of creative vacuum. 58 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,520 The idea of what a composer was, was exclusively male. 59 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,360 A composer was a man who wrote music. 60 00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:57,000 She wanted to be a good wife, a good daughter, 61 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:58,920 a good sister, a good mother. 62 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:03,320 At the same time, there was this fire burning inside her, 63 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,600 intellectual, rigorous, critical, creative. 64 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,000 That is what gets me every time with Fanny. 65 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:12,800 (DRAMATIC PIANO CHORDS) 66 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:19,320 (SOMBRE MUSIC) 67 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:25,560 SHEILA: 'When I began looking for Fanny, 68 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:27,680 all I had of her was this music stand 69 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,520 and the painting of her music room where it stood. 70 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,600 I realised I didn't even know what she looked like.' 71 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:40,240 Did she look like this? 72 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:42,040 Or this? 73 00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:43,560 Or this? 74 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:47,280 They're all radically different from each other, these pictures. 75 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:49,720 'There were no photos in those days. 76 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,000 Most of the pictures we have of her are imaginary ideals, 77 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:55,280 not real people. 78 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:56,840 Including these ones, 79 00:04:56,880 --> 00:05:00,320 which put her firmly in her place as her brother's support act. 80 00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:03,960 Even the official portrait isn't accurate. 81 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,080 She was horribly short sighted. 82 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:10,520 And none of them shows her as a musician. 83 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:11,920 That side of Fanny, 84 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,040 as for creative women throughout history, was just painted out. 85 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:19,200 So, my job seemed clear, 86 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:21,880 to find Fanny, the musical genius, 87 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:24,920 and give her the recognition she has always deserved. 88 00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:32,400 The first Mendelssohn was the famous philosopher 89 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:34,800 of the German Enlightenment, Moses. 90 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:38,240 His son Abraham had four children, 91 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:41,280 including the Mendelssohn we've all heard of, Felix. 92 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,600 Fanny's born in 1805 and Felix three years later. 93 00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:49,520 From the start, they're inseparable.' 94 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,560 (PIANO PLAYING) (DISTANT CHATTER) 95 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:56,760 SARAH ROTHENBERG: She and Felix and all of the children 96 00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:01,320 really took great fun in coming up with nicknames for people, 97 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:03,480 making fun of people socially. 98 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:05,520 I mean, there was tremendous laughter 99 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,360 and fun in the household. You get that sense all the time. 100 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:14,240 Yeah! 101 00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:16,200 (DRUM ROLL) 102 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:17,800 (CYMBAL CRASH) 103 00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:20,880 'But the thing that's central to both their lives is music.' 104 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:22,720 (PIANO PLAYING) 105 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,720 'They are two prodigies who live and breathe it together 106 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:31,480 and for the first few years they're taught together as well. 107 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:34,760 Both dreaming of their future musical careers.' 108 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,320 Fanny's musically brilliant and Felix is musically brilliant 109 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:40,840 but she's three years older 110 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:43,360 and of course, as children that means a lot. 111 00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:48,520 So, she has almost a parental kind of relationship to Felix 112 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,360 with music and it's something that they developed together. 113 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:56,080 (TRIUMPHANT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) (HOOVES CLIP-CLOPPING) 114 00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:59,480 (DOG BARKING) (HORSE NEIGHING) 115 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:02,280 'Their father, Abraham, is a wealthy banker 116 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:05,360 who converts the family from Judaism to Christianity, 117 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:08,840 adds the Protestant surname Bartholdy, 118 00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:12,040 and moves them into this enormous Berlin mansion. 119 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:15,200 All to cement the family's reputation in society.' 120 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,880 Their place in European society was really a new one. 121 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:21,960 The conversion from Judaism 122 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,200 was a way of becoming a modern European citizen. 123 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:29,280 And the family had become extremely wealthy, 124 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:32,520 so they were entering into a social world 125 00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:36,040 that Jews were not frequently in before. 126 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,400 And so, as a result, they were extremely careful 127 00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:41,400 about what was proper, what was not proper. 128 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:48,520 # Es fallt ein Stern herunter 129 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:52,920 # Aus seiner funkelnden Hoh 130 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,400 'What's proper for young ladies at this time is 'Lieder,' 131 00:07:56,440 --> 00:07:59,080 lyrical songs with keyboard accompaniment, 132 00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:01,720 that Fanny and her sister Rebecka, a singer, 133 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:03,320 can perform in private, 134 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,800 without damaging the family's reputation. 135 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:08,600 So...