Fanny Mendelssohn

Her younger brother Felix had a close if not fully supportive relationship with her, thought her a better pianist, but overshadowed her. She met Berlioz, Massenet, Ingres and Gounod in Italy: Ingres played violin with her, while Gounod urged her to publish under her own name (he mentioned the fire in her eyes and her extraordinary energy). Hegel, the Humboldts, Liszt, Clara Schumann, Arnim and Paganini all attended her famous ‘Sonntagsmusiken’. She expressed contempt for Heine as a person, while setting his poetry to music. Goethe, impressed by her songs, wrote a poem for her when she was 15.