Chen Reiss on Fanny Hensel: ‘She has her own voice, and it's just as good.’

Recent years have seen a resurgence in the performance and promotion of music by female composers. Curious about what led her to create an album promoting the work of Fanny Hensel, the composer sister of Felix Mendelssohn, I speak to soprano Chen Reiss over Zoom following the release of her CD Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with Onyx Classics. 

How did the idea of putting together your new CD, Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, come about?

I always say I'm like the eternal student. New repertoire lands on my desk all the time and people come to me with interesting projects that I immediately get enthusiastic about.

I had to prepare this CD relatively fast because I spoke with conductor Daniel Grossman in January with the original idea of doing a concert, but we decided to record because of the pandemic. I had never even sung a piece by Fanny Hensel before and the recording was in the summer, around six months later, so I had a short time to get to know her and understand her language, her inner world

I'm not singing one song in a concert; I’m paying homage to an artist, so I had to be well-informed about her life and the circumstances which led her to write these pieces. Luckily, I speak German and Italian, but that doesn't mean I'm involved with the text, it means I understand it. Each song is its own universe, so I read it and sit with it for days. I ask: what does this text mean to me? Why did Hensel choose these harmonies? As a singer, it's not enough to just learn the work, you have to put it into your voice and get involved with the text. I feel a responsibility to really communicate deep feelings.

I think that comes across in the CD. There’s a lot of me in it, I feel, as a woman, as a mother, as a wife and as an artist.

What made you decide to choose the path less travelled and champion a less well-known composer?

I feel a personal connection with her, and I was also motivated by the fact that I think she's a brilliant composer and there aren't many recordings of her music - certainly not a CD that puts them all together.

Of course, the music is what inspired us to make a CD, but it has for us also some historic value as Jews in in Europe. Daniel Grossmann and I were so moved and inspired by Hensel’s relationship with her brother and by the story of their family as a Jewish family. It was such a famous and important family with Felix and Fanny’s grandfather being the greatest German philosopher of the 19th century and their father being a very important banker and industrialist. They were family of financial means, of social status - Fanny herself had music salons in her in her home – but it wasn't enough, they still had to convert in order to be accepted, so Felix could hold the position of the Kapellmeister and so the father could make a business.

I noticed that many female composers of the 19th century wrote for voice and piano, but Hensel actually wrote for voice and orchestra. The Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich commissioned arrangements of those songs from Israeli composer Tal-Haim Samnon, so they can actually be presented, not only as a recital with piano, but also in orchestra programmes. I think that actually, through the orchestrations, the pieces kept their intimacy - the words are still in the foreground but, because we use different orchestra instruments, they actually have much more colour and you feel the atmosphere of the song even more.

What kind of challenges have you faced in your process of researching and championing Fanny Hensel as a composer?

It was hard to find the right editions for some of the music because there isn't a lot of printed music of hers, and a lot of her songs were originally published under the name of her brother. During her lifetime, she hardly published anything under her own name and only since research of her music developed in the 1990s have we realised that a lot of the songs which were attributed to Felix - including the Easter Sonata - were actually written by her. It's important to unveil the truth and to say, ‘Felix wrote this’, ‘Fanny wrote that’.

It was not easy to find the actual, correct music and we also wanted to find the right person to orchestrate the songs. It was really important for me to include her art songs on the CD, but to find the right way to orchestrate them so they don't lose their intimacy, so they don't lose all the colours and I have to admit I'm very happy with the results.

Do you feel your own, quite unique, experience being Jewish born in Israel but also singing a lot of Christian material helps you understand Fanny Hensel more deeply?

Hensel was born Jewish - and so obviously I feel very connected to her as an Israeli and as a Jew - but she grew up quite a devoted Christian.

Sacred music is probably my favourite music to sing, which is interesting because I was asked once as a Jew how do I feel about I singing Christian messages? I think it's divine. It makes me feel close to God. It doesn't matter that it was written by Christian composers or to Christian texts, it still expresses the Holiness, the unexplained, the something which is beyond what we see. The music brings me closer to God - I always say music is my religion, in a way.

I feel this same duality in the music of Fanny and Felix because their music, in my opinion, is not Jewish music - it's very German music because they were educated in the German tradition, and you hear it in the way they write. In Felix’s letters he does refer to his Jewish friends or his Jewish heritage, but both of them write music to themes from the Bible.

If it's good music, then it moves anyone regardless of their religious background.

Would you consider your choice to be a feminist decision, or is your aim simply to promote this rediscovered music to wider audiences regardless of gender?

I wouldn't say it was it was a feminist decision, it was more of a musical decision, because it's great music. I think there is so much more awareness and acceptance of female composers today that we don't need to shout it, we just need to let the music speak for itself. I think we need to be courageous to record and to present unknown music, and here is where we need the help of the programmers. We also need the audience to be more courageous, to buy tickets to concerts with some unknown composers and buy CDs with pieces by unknown composers.

I think it's also the responsibility of our generation as musicians to programme it in our recitals, to record it.

Do you feel that the presentation of Fanny Hensel’s work alongside that of her brother affects listeners’ appreciation of her work?

it's an interesting question. I would love to talk to listeners or music critics about it. I think that putting them next to each other makes us understand that she really developed her own musical language. Of course, there are similarities, but they're not the same. I know from reading about her and talking to people about her that she had a very dominant, passionate, fiery personality, and it comes across - she's not the ‘sister of’ she was a woman and a composer in her own right.

I think that, through putting her work together with her brother’s, one sees that that she has her own voice, and it's just as good.

What sort of advice would you give to musicians or programmers who are wanting to research and incorporate those lesser-known composers into their performances or programming?

It is one thing to make the programme and another thing to sell it. Research is not a problem because, you know, everything is in a on the computer, there are also so many great articles everywhere or you can just go and see the new CD's that people are recording and get ideas from those. I also like to set up in an antique shop and look through old music. I still love the smell of old paper so I like to sit in those old music shops - I could spend hours doing that and getting ideas and putting together programmes.

Then when you write the programme, it has to have a story. It's not just a random collection of songs, look at the world around you and it will inspire you.

You can find out more about Chen Reiss at her website.

Chen Reiss’ latest CD, Fanny Hensel & Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, is released on Onyx Classics. You can find out more (including details of where to buy it) here.