For today’s lovers of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music it is difficult to imagine that in the early 19th century the music of the great Baroque master was considered unmelodic, calculating, bone-dry and incomprehensible. It was only in a few private homes that Bach’s music was still played, and there were hardly any public performances. The Mendelssohn family was an exception, though: in their circle Bach’s music was highly esteemed and cultivated. In the winter of 1827, Felix Mendelssohn, then 18 years old, gathered a small circle of musical comrades-in-arms every Saturday to rehearse parts from Bach’s St Matthew Passion with a small choir which also included his sister Fanny. This work had been completely unknown to them, and their enthusiasm for this music grew from rehearsal to rehearsal, finally leading to a legendary first revival performance at the Berliner Singakademie in 1829. This concert was conducted by the young Felix Mendelssohn, and Fanny Mendelssohn sang in it. It is considered a milestone in music history and contributed significantly to the rediscovery of Bach‘s work in the 19th century.

Under the impression of this intense involvement with Bach’s music, Fanny Mendelssohn in 1828 composed a piano sonata which she titled “Easter Sonata”. The influence that her preoccupation with Bach’s St Matthew Passion had on her can be clearly seen. Thus the second movement centres on a fugue suffused with dense Bach-like chromaticism, and the final bars are reminiscent of some recitative passages in the St Matthew Passion.

This magnificent piano sonata was only rediscovered in the 1970s and then attributed to her brother Felix Mendelssohn. It was only when in 2010 the original manuscript turned up in a private estate that an analysis of the handwriting without any doubt identified Fanny Hensel as the author of this work. In 2024, Bärenreiter published it in an Urtext edition.

We are delighted that Sharon Prushansky will introduce this unique work to us. She will combine the Easter Sonata with character pieces from Fanny Hensel’s piano cycle “The Year” and with works by the Swiss composer Theodor Fröhlich, who attended the performance of the St Matthew Passion conducted by Mendelssohn and whose work was also lastingly influenced by this experience.

Sharon Prushansky was born in Israel and now lives in Switzerland. She is a versatile musician and regularly plays concerts as a pianist and as an organist both in Europea and Israel. Sharon studied in Tel Aviv and in Basle at the  Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

From the application video