As a child and then as an adolescent, Fanny Mendelssohn’s all-encompassing commitment to music as a pianist and as composer never wavered.  Fanny was not quite 15-years-old when her father Abraham dropped the bomb and forbade her to pursue music as a career.  She was, instead, to learn how to run a household and raise a family, both of which she did – joyfully and competently – until her terribly premature death from a stroke on May 14, 1847, at the age of 41.  She was “allowed” to choose her own husband, and she chose well: the Prussian Royal Court Painter and professor of painting Wilhelm Hensel (1794-1861).  Together they had one child, a son named Sebastian Ludwig Felix Hensel (1830-1898).   (“Sebastian Ludwig Felix Hensel.” I think we can all agree that it was Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel who named her son.  “Sebastian”, as in Bach; “Ludwig”, as in Beethoven; and “Felix” as in her brother, Felix Mendelssohn! Sebastian Mendelssohn was such a good boy.  Early on, he began compiling a history of the Mendelssohn family, based on Fanny’s diaries and the voluminous correspondence between his parents, Fanny and Felix.  Sebastian’s family history remains the bedrock on which rests all Mendelssohn […]