Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s older sister, was long and unjustly overlooked as a serious composer, despite a considerable and impressive output comprising numerous piano pieces, duets, trios, choral works, chamber music for different instruments, an overture, an oratorio, several major cantatas—and innumerable songs. She was writing music at a time when it was considered unsuitable for a woman from the upper middle classes to have ambitions as a professional musician. Despite her gifts and desire for recognition, throughout most of her life Fanny respected the prevailing conventions and the wishes of her family, accepting the prescribed role of a cultivated Berlin lady of the time.

This recording is devoted to 29 of her beautiful songs. Most of them were recorded here for the first time. The poets include Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, Rückert, Lenau and Geibel, most of whom were known to Fanny personally.