Overture in C Major, H 265 – All Classical Research

Hensel composed this overture in the spring of 1832. It is her only known purely orchestral work.
This work had its premiere in the composer’s home on June 15, 1834, at one of Hensel’s Sonntagsmusiken, the private Sunday concert series she hosted in her home.
- Programming her own overture was something of an anomaly: Interestingly, Hensel did not use this series primarily to promote her own music: more often she programmed music by historical composers, including Handel, Bach, and Beethoven, and music by her brother Felix.
The orchestra of the Königstadt Theater performed the premiere of Hensel’s Overture. The orchestra’s conductor, Julius Amadeus Lecerf, was slated to direct the performance, but he laid down his baton and insisted on deferring to Hensel, and she conducted the piece’s premiere instead. Hensel often conducted small choral ensembles, but this is the only known occasion on which Hensel conducted an orchestral work.¹

Angela Mace Christian, “Hensel [née Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy)], Fanny Cäcilie,” Grove Music Online (November 28, 2018), accessed June 3, 2021, https://ww.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-3000000159.

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