An exploration of works by members of the Bach Family, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Gustav and Imogen Holst.

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As a rule, impactful artists seldom emerge in a vacuum;  often their inherent talent is nurtured in the crucible of experience and environment. For a good number of artists, a family connection is an immense influence that nurtures, and sometimes challenges, an individual’s own style. In the Family explores four musical families (the Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Holst families) and their interconnectedness.

When the count of Arnstadt needed to hire a lead musician for his court in the late 17th century he is reported to have said, “...just find me one of those Bachs”—an evidence of the family’s prominent reputation.  When in his forties, Johann Sebastian lovingly scribed a family genealogy, acknowledging his familial musical heritage, and this document was continued and enlarged after his death by his son Carl Philip Emmanuel. Johann Sebastian’s elder cousins Johann Christoph and Johann Ludwig nurtured him (and several of his orphaned siblings) after the sudden death of his musical parents when Sebastian was only nine. They mentored him in the musical fundamentals of partwriting, playing the organ, and writing motets—he was already a fine violinist and an exceptional treble singer thanks to the training of his parents.  Johann Sebasian’s music is the product of a generations-long family enterprise—one that fell into obscurity until the Mendelssohn and Schumann families focused attention on it again, later impacting Gustav and Imogen Holst.

The family of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn was not an exclusively artistic one, though their beloved great aunt Sarah Itzig-Levy was a gifted pianist—and a student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, one of Johann Sebastian’s sons. Their  paternal grandfather was an important philosopher and Jewish theologian. Their father Abraham was less well-known, but was a successful businessman and enthusiastic philanthropist. He was a founding member of the Singakademie zu Berlin—the organization which mounted the first performances of Bach’s passions after his death.  To celebrate Abraham’s birthday in 1819, Fanny (already an accomplished pianist at fourteen) played Bach’s Well Tempered Keyboard from memory—an event etched in her younger brother Felix’s mind.  Both Fanny and Felix grew into prolific composers in their own right, but the Bach fingerprint is undeniably etched on all their work.

Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (née Wieck) were contemporaries of the Mendelssohns, and also held reverence for Johann Sebastian Bach’s music—something they noted extensively in their diaries and correspondence. The source of that reverence stemmed Clara’s father Friedrich Wieck, who was well-versed in Bach’s music. Friedrich spent his entire life in and around Leipzig where Bach’s influence remained prominent, especially as an educational model. Wieck used Bach’s music as a fundamental part of training his piano students, who included his daughter Clara and her future husband Robert. Clara became well known as a virtuosic solo pianist, touring Europe extensively throughout her life. Robert seemed destined for a similar career as a virtuosic pianist, but injury reduced his capacity to play. Both Schumanns composed extensively; Clara’s music shows evidence of Bach-influenced technical demands and attention to structure.  Robert music was more experimental, using the name Bach (the notes Bb, A, C, and H - B natural in the German system) as a musical subject in several piano works—something the Bach himself did many times!

The Holsts share similarities with both the Bach and Schumann families. The surname Holst, like Bach, had become synonymous with music making in well-respected musical centers in throughout the Baltic—though Gustav though of himself as exclusively British. Like Robert Schumann, medical struggles limited his ability to perform, and composition became his primary focus.  He was especially influenced by Mendelssohn’s music. Gustav experienced popular success as a composer just as his only daughter Imogen was a teenager. She rose to prominence as one of the first women to conduct regularly in public, premiering Britten’s Five Flower Songs and leading acclaimed performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of his death.  In 1956 she was named a co-director of Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival, a role she would inhabit until her death in 1984. Her work conductor, as the primary organizing force of the Aldeburge Festival, and as a writer have largely overshadowed her own musical writing. Following two generations of neglect (not unlike Johann Sebastian Bach), her compositions are now beginning to experience a well-deserved revival.