Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn shared a deeply affectionate and intellectually rich sibling bond, rooted in their mutual love of music. Both were exceptionally talented composers and pianists, and they supported each other's artistic pursuits throughout their lives. Though Felix achieved public fame, Fanny's talents were equally profound, though often constrained by the gender norms of their time. Felix greatly admired Fanny’s compositions, sometimes even performing her works under his name. Their letters reveal a warm, respectful relationship full of shared ideas and artistic collaboration, making them one of the most remarkable sibling pairs in classical music history. thier bond is further witnessed by the fact that after touring, Felix returned to Frankfurt and received the news that his beloved sister Fanny had died on 14 May.1847. In an unpublished letter to his sister Rebecka, merely five days after Fanny’s death, he writes, “God help us all—I don’t know what else to say and think…God help us, God help us!…The only thing that helps a little is to cry a lot—if only one could do that all the time. Alas, dear sister, I can’t write or think about anything except Fanny. It will never be otherwise as long as we’re here on earth.”Mendelssohn was devastated and unable to attend his sister’s funeral. Instead he departed for Switzerland with his brother Paul. To cope with his loss he painted watercolors and only gradually took up composition again. Mendelssohn returned to Leipzig by the middle of September, and finally visited his sister’s grave in Berlin at the end of the month. That particular visit shook Mendelssohn to the core, and he was unable to fulfill his conducting obligations. On 3 November, the violinist Ferdinand David wrote to Sterndale Bennett, “Never shall I forget Niels Gade coming to me at the Conservatorium and telling me that Mendelssohn had another attack and that it was a question of life and death. I ran out at once and was met with the tidings that there was no hope. It was quite a quarter of an hour before I was calm enough to go in to him. I found him unconscious (this was Wednesday evening) and his shrieks, which lasted until 10 o’clock, were terrible. Then he began to hum and to drum as if music were passing through his head and, when he became exhausted by it, he started giving fearful screams and continued to do so throughout the night. In the course of the following day the pains seem to have abated, but his face was that of a dying man.” Felix Mendelssohn was buried on 8 November 1847 in the cemetery of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Berlin, next to the grave of his sister Fanny.

Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the most influential composers of the Baroque era, was not only a master of counterpoint and sacred music but also the patriarch of a remarkably musical family. He had 20 children, though only 10 survived to adulthood. Bach was married twice during his lifetime. His first marriage was to Maria Barbara Bach, a second cousin, in 1707. Together they had seven children, four of whom survived into adulthood, including the talented composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. After Maria Barbara's sudden death in 1720, Bach married Anna Magdalena Wilcke in 1721, a professional singer. Their marriage was a close and musically rich partnership, and they had thirteen children together, though only a few survived. Anna Magdalena also assisted Bach with copying music manuscripts, and her support was integral to his work and household. Several of his children became prominent composers in their own right. Among them, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Christian Bach, and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach stood out for their contributions to the transition between the Baroque and Classical styles. Bach’s legacy lived on through their innovative works, ensuring that the Bach name continued to shape the course of Western music long after his death.

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