The Pandemic in Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn’s Life

On the 29th of August 1831, a boatman died in Charlottenburg; the next day another boatman died in Berlin. On that very day Berlin reported the Asiatic cholera pandemic outbreak.

Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn

Despite health defense committees that were formed in advance, the capital was not prepared properly to deal with the disease. There was no hospital capable of treating the many people taken ill, and even when the hospital that in the past had dealt with the smallpox epidemic was opened, it had only thirteen beds.

Although the newspapers reported that the epidemic was less virulent than expected, it still affected 2,271 people and took 1,426 lives. Among the victims were relatives and close friends of the Hensel-Mendelssohn family such as Fanny’s Aunt Yetta, philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel, Peter Ulrich, a student of Wilhelm’s and one of Fanny’s close friends, Friedrich Zelter, Fanny and Felix’s teacher, playwright Ludwig Robert and his wife Friederike, and the noted Jewish salonniere Rahel Varnhagen.

It was at this time that Fanny devoted herself to writing her Hiob cantata which she had begun in June, and for which she chose verses that had become more relevant than ever in view of the epidemic raging all around:

What is a human being that you should make so much of him?[1]

Subjecting him to your scrutiny,

That morning after morning you should examine him

And at every instant test him?[2]

After two verses expressing despair and pondering Man’s insignificance compared with the universe, she chose to conclude the cantata with a hymn of praise to the Almighty.

The approaching Christmas holiday caused her and her family to feel they were lucky not to have been afflicted by the epidemic, and on 10 December 1831 the cantata had its first performance in their home in honour of her father Abraham Mendelssohn’s birthday.

Copyrights:

Eastman Repertory Singers and Chamber Orchestra

Francesca Lionetta, soprano, Kyrsten Chambers-Jones, mezzo-soprano,

Jordan Costa, tenor, Mason Lambert, baritone

Joe Lerangis, conductor

Kilbourn Hall at Eastman School of Music: December 2018

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[1] In this text 'Him' refers to both masculine and feminine. [2] The Jerusalem Bible, p. 637