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Fanny M with Didier Sandre (Comédie Française)

Monday 17 Feb 2025

Giving voice to those whom history has rendered inaudible.

Fanny M. was born of a mystery: the identity of an unknown woman who fuelled passions and contributed to the craze surrounding Ludwig van Beethoven.

On his death, the composer left a feverish love letter, never sent and whose addressee will never be known…

At the same time, Fanny Mendelssohn was ordered by her times to be a wife and mother. Even her brother Felix recognized her immense talent as a composer, but fearing that it might surpass his own, he preferred to reassure her in her role as housewife…

In this concert-reading, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 18 No. 1, Richard Dubugnon’s melodrama Lettre à l’Immortelle Bien Aimée and Fanny Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E-flat Major resonate with Ludwig’s, Fanny’s and Felix’s correspondence and letters, plunging us into the intimacy of composer and composer, and exposing the complexities of one’s heart and the other’s struggle.