Sontraud Engels Benz

Sontraud Speidel's selection of works by Fanny Hensel reveals the true diversity and originality of one of the most important women composers. Only a small fraction of Hensel multifaceted oeuvre has entered the repertoire until today, and numerous treasures from her pen are still awaiting discovery.

The four-hand versions of orchestral works by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy recorded here by Sontraud Speidel and Franziska Lee are all by the composer himself and correspond to the musical text of the first editions published during Mendelssohn's lifetime, with the sole exception of the Overture to the Singspiel Soldatenliebschaft. The five works span a period of 22 years, presenting examples of little-known music for the operatic stage and the Overture Op. 24, which is unfortunately rarely heard, with two famous pieces from Mendelssohn's mature years.

The likelihood is that Bruno Walter designed his transcriptions of Mahler’s First and Second Symphonies for public performance. Dynamics, phrasings and accents have been dropped in with forensic clarity, a concentration of detail unnecessary had the purpose merely been to demonstrate the broad outlines of Mahler’s works to potential interested parties. These transcriptions were meant to spread the word, reaching out to audiences during a time when performances of Mahler symphonies were still rare events.

Most piano duet arrangements were meant for the home rather than the concert hall. When you sight-read orchestral reductions at the piano, your physical involvement with the material “fills in” the missing instrumental color. Even with skillful four-hand “de-orchestrations” like Max Reger’s of the Bach Orchestral Suites, listeners run the risk of “registral fatigue”. In the main, the Speidel-Trenkner piano duo circumvents these limitations through canny pianistic means. In the C major Suite’s Forlane, for example, the oboe’s hornpipe-like melody bounces on a featherweight accompaniment.

“She shared the brotherhood of talent with her famous sibling”, wrote the poet and music journalist Ludwig Rellstab at the death of Fanny Hensel née Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the wife of the Prussian court painter Wilhelm Hensel. It was a fitting epitaph for an extraordinary woman who had died after suffering a stroke on 14 May 1847 at the age of 41.

A superb recording of the Bach's Orchestral Suites transcribed for a piano duet. It makes a great change to hear these excellent pieces of Bach played as a piano duet to the standard orchestral version. I am absolutely delighted with it and it is great that I now have both the original orchestral version (complete) and this complete version too. For anyone who enjoys piano transcriptions of orchestral works, this recording is highly recommended.