Hensel: String Quartet in E flat

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The String Quartet in E flat major (1834) by Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn, is one of the most important works by a female composer written in the nineteenth century. Composed at a turning point in her life (as Hensel was not only grappling with her own creative voice but also coming to terms with her identity as a married woman, and the role her family expected of her), the quartet is significant in showing a woman composing in a genre that was then almost exclusively the domain of male artists. Benedict Taylor's illuminating book situates itself within developing scholarly discourse on the music of women composers, going beyond apologetics – or condemnation of those who hindered their development – to examine the strength and qualities of the music and how it responded to the most progressive works of the period.

• Offers the most detailed and the only substantial account of one of the most significant works of music by a woman composer
• Develops an argument concerning the Mendelssohns' use of music as a means of intimate musical communication, taking further the proposition that music served as a more precise means of communication than words for the siblings
• Contributes to the enormous growth of interest in musical form, specifically the turn to the nineteenth-century repertoire in the 'New Formenlehre'