ABSTRACT
The Zwlf Lieder, were released all in one year; the first half of the opus bears the title Der Jngling and the second Das Mdchen. It is doubtless no coincidence that Fanny Hensel's three contributions to op. 9 all appear in the second half. It is true that Felix Mendelssohn published six of his sisters Lieder under his own name, in his Zwlf Gesnge, op. 8 and Zwlf Lieder, op. 9, but there is no evidence that anything else published as Felix's was actually by Fanny. Indeed, Felix was absent from Berlin, and requested that Fanny begin the process of selecting the Lieder for op. Seaton's hypothesis presents a plausible scenario, especially as the Mendelssohn's were growing up in the most prolific flowering of Berlin salons. Both Fannys future piano and first composition teacher Ludwig Berger, and her husband, Wilhelm Hensel, were members of the Staegemann salon and produced Die schne Mllerin to pass the dark Berlin winter evenings.
