Fanny.The.Other.Mendelssohn.2023.108EB Subtitles

00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,
00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(DISTANT CLIP-CLOP OF HORSES)

00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:32,(DISTANT BELLS RINGING)

00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:36,(BIG BEN CHIMES)

00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,(HORSE NEIGHING)

00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:49,SHEILA HAYMAN:
Buckingham Palace, London, 1842.

00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:52,(BIG BEN BONGS)

00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,SHEILA: 'The superstar
German composer, Felix Mendelssohn,

00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:06,is invited here
to play his famous songs.'

00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:08,(BELLS CHIMING)

00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,(WOMAN SINGING)
# Schoner und schoner
# Schmuckt sich der Plan

00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:17,# Schmeichelnde Lufte
# Wehen mich an

00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,# Fort aus der Prosa
# Lasten und Muh'

00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,SHEILA: 'The singer is
Queen Victoria herself.'

00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:27,# Goldner die Sonne
# Blauer die Luft

00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:31,'And the song she chooses as
her favourite is called Italien.

00:01:31,960 --> 00:01:34,It's a huge honour for Felix.'

00:01:35,320 --> 00:01:38,# Dort an dem Maishalm
Schwellend von Saft

00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:41,# Straubt sich der Aloe
Storrische Kraft

00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,# Olbaum, Cypresse
Blond du, du braun

00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:47,# Nickt ihr wie zierliche

00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:49,'But Felix has a problem.

00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,He didn't actually write this song.

00:01:56,560 --> 00:02:00,It was composed by his sister,
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:07,Fanny was
my great-great-great grandmother

00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,but I knew very little
about her musical genius.

00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:13,Her story had been overshadowed
by her brother

00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:16,and overlooked by
a male-dominated musical world.

00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:18,But looking for clues,

00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:20,I discovered she has
nine Twitter accounts.

00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:24,Unusual for somebody
who's been dead for 175 years.

00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,So, I realised I wasn't the only
person interested in her.'

00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:31,Third clap.

00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:34,Roland Schmidt-Hensel
in the Staatsbibliothek.

00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,'And I discovered an army of fans

00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:39,determined to rescue her
from oblivion.'

00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:43,They have all of these, yes.
Oh, that's amazing.

00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:46,ROBERT LEHMAN:
Wow.

00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:48,What is THAT?

00:02:48,920 --> 00:02:51,Holy crap.

00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,I've never heard anything like it.

00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:57,ISATA KANNEH-MASON:
I imagine her to have been

00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,very stubborn, thinking,
you know, "This is how I feel.

00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,This is what I want to write."
And not being held back

00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:06,and just writing something
really expressive.

00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:10,'The search for Fanny
took me from London to Berlin,

00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:12,and Paris to New York.

00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,And revealed the hunt
for a long-lost masterpiece,

00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:17,the Easter Sonata.

00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,I discovered a story of intense
sibling drama, joy and tragedy.

00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,A woman who defied convention
but dared not defy her family.

00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:33,This is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel,
a very modern woman,

00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:36,who just happened to live
two centuries ago.'

00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:38,(SWEEPING PIANO NOTES)

00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,TIM PARKER-LANGSTON:
Every time she sat down to write,

00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,she was doing so
in a sort of creative vacuum.

00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,The idea of what a composer was,
was exclusively male.

00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,A composer was a man
who wrote music.

00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:57,She wanted to be a good wife,
a good daughter,

00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:58,a good sister, a good mother.

00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:03,At the same time, there was
this fire burning inside her,

00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,intellectual, rigorous,
critical, creative.

00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,That is what gets me
every time with Fanny.

00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:12,(DRAMATIC PIANO CHORDS)

00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:19,(SOMBRE MUSIC)

00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:25,SHEILA:
'When I began looking for Fanny,

00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:27,all I had of her
was this music stand

00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,and the painting of her music room
where it stood.

00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,I realised I didn't even know
what she looked like.'

00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:40,Did she look like this?

00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:42,Or this?

00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:43,Or this?

00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:47,They're all radically different
from each other, these pictures.

00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:49,'There were no photos in those days.

00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,Most of the pictures we have
of her are imaginary ideals,

00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:55,not real people.

00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:56,Including these ones,

00:04:56,880 --> 00:05:00,which put her firmly in her place
as her brother's support act.

00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:03,Even the official portrait
isn't accurate.

00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,She was horribly short sighted.

00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:10,And none of them
shows her as a musician.

00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:11,That side of Fanny,

00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,as for creative women throughout
history, was just painted out.

00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:19,So, my job seemed clear,

00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:21,to find Fanny, the musical genius,

00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:24,and give her the recognition
she has always deserved.

00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:32,The first Mendelssohn
was the famous philosopher

00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:34,of the German Enlightenment, Moses.

00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:38,His son Abraham
had four children,

00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:41,including the Mendelssohn
we've all heard of, Felix.

00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,Fanny's born in and Felix three years later.

00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:49,From the start,
they're inseparable.'

00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,(PIANO PLAYING)
(DISTANT CHATTER)

00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:56,SARAH ROTHENBERG: She and Felix
and all of the children

00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:01,really took great fun in coming up
with nicknames for people,

00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:03,making fun of people socially.

00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:05,I mean, there was
tremendous laughter

00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,and fun in the household.
You get that sense all the time.

00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:14,Yeah!

00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:16,(DRUM ROLL)

00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:17,(CYMBAL CRASH)

00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:20,'But the thing that's central
to both their lives is music.'

00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:22,(PIANO PLAYING)

00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,'They are two prodigies
who live and breathe it together

00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:31,and for the first few years
they're taught together as well.

00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:34,Both dreaming
of their future musical careers.'

00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,Fanny's musically brilliant
and Felix is musically brilliant

00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:40,but she's three years older

00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:43,and of course,
as children that means a lot.

00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:48,So, she has almost a parental
kind of relationship to Felix

00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,with music and it's something
that they developed together.

00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:56,(TRIUMPHANT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(HOOVES CLIP-CLOPPING)

00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:59,(DOG BARKING)
(HORSE NEIGHING)

00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:02,'Their father, Abraham,
is a wealthy banker

00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:05,who converts the family
from Judaism to Christianity,

00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:08,adds the Protestant
surname Bartholdy,

00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:12,and moves them into
this enormous Berlin mansion.

00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:15,All to cement the family's
reputation in society.'

00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,Their place in European society
was really a new one.

00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:21,The conversion from Judaism

00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,was a way of becoming
a modern European citizen.

00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:29,And the family had become
extremely wealthy,

00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:32,so they were entering
into a social world

00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:36,that Jews were not
frequently in before.

00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,And so, as a result,
they were extremely careful

00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:41,about what was proper,
what was not proper.

00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:48,# Es fallt ein Stern herunter

00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:52,# Aus seiner funkelnden Hoh

00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:56,'What's proper for young ladies
at this time is 'Lieder,'

00:07:56,440 --> 00:07:59,lyrical songs
with keyboard accompaniment,

00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:01,that Fanny and her sister
Rebecka, a singer,

00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:03,can perform in private,

00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,without damaging
the family's reputation.

00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:08,So...