Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Cécile Sophie Charlotte Mendelssohn Bartholdy (née Jeanrenaud, 1817–1853) was a German amateur artist and singer of French descent. As the wife of composer Felix Mendelssohn, she is often seen as a positive influence on his life and work and is the dedicatee of music by both Felix and his sister Fanny Mendelssohn.

Life

Early life Cécile was born on 10 October 1817, the youngest daughter of the Reformed pastor Auguste Jenrenaud and his wife Elizabeth (née Souchay). Both parents came from Huguenot families which had left France in 1685 to continue practicing their Protestant faith. Her father, who came from a humble family in Switzerland, died when she was two. Cécile and her three siblings grew up in a prosperous, well-connected and well-educated home with her mother and maternal grandparents in Frankfurt. He left Frankfurt two days after meeting Cécile to conduct the premiere of his oratorio Paulus in Düsseldorf, and then travelled to Schevenigen by himself to test whether his interest in her would continue. By 7 June, he had returned to Frankfurt to see her again. He wrote 'Duett ohne Worte' Op. 38, No. 6 while she was on a two-week holiday that month.

Despite Cécile's family’s reservations that she could have got a better match, she married Felix Mendelssohn at the Walloon French Reformed Church in Frankfurt on 28 March 1837 with a bridal chorus composed by Ferdinand Hiller, a long-term family friend.

Family life

The Mendelssohns settled in Leipzig, with the first of their five children being born in February 1838. She learned English in order to travel to Britain with her husband, which she was able to do in 1842, but at other times she was prevented from travelling by her pregnancies. She continued to travel within Germany, including taking her sickly youngest son, Felix, to the spa town of Bad Soden.

Their children were:

Karl (b. 1838), a historian Marie (b. 1839) Paul (b. 1841), a chemist Felix (b. 1843, d. 1850) Elisabeth 'Lili' (b. 1845), who married academic Adolf Wach.

Character and legacy

Cécile was often noted by her contemporaries as being quiet, gentle and calm, and producing a stable domestic environment for her husband. Mendelssohn himself wrote that he found in her 'a contentment that he had not known since childhood' and that 'the best part of every pleasure is gone if Cécile is not there', and his letters became filled with details of their family life. Fanny Mendelssohn was disappointed that Felix's relationship with Cécile made her less close with her brother than before,

In 1947, some of Cécile's letters and diaries were published in The Romance of the Mendelssohns by Jacques Petitpierre. The Mendelssohns' honeymoon diary was published, along with some of their letters, in 1997.