Prandi Co-Editor of Volume on Mendelssohns

Feb. 4, 2003

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Julie D. Prandi, professor of German at Illinois Wesleyan University, is co-editor of a new volume, The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History published in December by Oxford University Press.

The 340-page book is the product of a conference hosted by Illinois Wesleyan in 1997. Prandi’s co-editor, John Michael Cooper, formerly assistant professor of music at Illinois Wesleyan, proposed the conference shortly after his arrival at the University in 1994. He is now associate professor of musicology at the University of North Texas.

The conference marked the sesquicentennial of the deaths of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a child prodigy who became one of the great Romantic composers of the 19th century, and his sister Fanny, an exceptional musician and composer suppressed by the gender limitations of the society in which she lived.

Moderated primarily by Prandi, the four-day festival featured full-length presentations by 20 internationally renowned Mendelssohn/Hensel scholars and explored musical, sociological, and historical aspects of the lives, works, and historical reception of the siblings. Orchestral and choral groups from the Illinois Wesleyan School of Music performed concerts of Mendelssohn and Hensel’s unpublished and little-known music each day of the conference.

According to Oxford University Press, the book is a "compendium of scholarship concerning the lives, works, and receptions of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel. Organized thematically, the essays represent the latest work of leading specialists from the USA, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy." These Mendelssohn/Hensel specialists presented their scholarly papers at the conference, entitled "The Mendelssohns at the Millenium: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel After 150 Years."

Prandi, who earned her Ph. D. in German literature from the University of California, Berkeley, came to Illinois Wesleyan University in 1984. She has since had numerous works published, including her book Dare to be Happy! A Study of Goethe’s Ethics.

In addition to editing The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, Prandi is also a contributor to the collection. Her essay, "Kindred Spirits: Mendelssohn and Goethe, Die erste Walpurgisnacht," addresses the friendship shared between Felix Mendelssohn and the legendary German writer and intellectual Johann Wolfgang Goethe. A Goethe scholar interested in the history of the fine arts, Prandi was familiar with Goethe’s ballad "Die erste Walpurgisnacht." However, she was unaware that Mendelssohn had put the piece to music until she heard the choral piece performed during a concert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hearing it "was like a revelation for me," said Prandi. This prompted her in 1996 to write a paper on the subject.

Prandi has noted that the conference and the new volume point to a strength at Illinois Wesleyan, which, she says, "provides excellent opportunities for faculty from disparate disciplines to collaborate on projects—something less likely to happen at a larger university."