Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s sister, wrote music throughout her life. She originally published her songs and piano pieces under her brother’s name, but soon began to use her own name instead, confiding to her diary that “I cannot deny that the joy I derive in publishing my own music also increases my good humour”. Luckily for us, her great-granddaughter Fanny Kistner-Hensel gave G. Henle Verlag access to a previously unpublished selection of 11 piano pieces, and edited them herself from the autographs. After some early pieces focussing on piano instruction there follows a chronological sequence of personal character pieces such as the Notturno in g minor and “Abschied von Rom” [Departure from Rome], composed from the mid-1830s.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
