Among the lives of those female composers who sought recognition during the 19th century, that of Fanny Mendelssohn is arguably the most poignant. Born in Berlin in 1805, she showed early musical ability and received lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter alongside her younger brother Felix. Skilled as a pianist and singer, she composed prolifically in the 1820s but favored piano pieces and songs—several of which were later published by Felix in his own collections. Her larger works include a Piano Quartet (1822) and programmatic Easter Sonata for piano (1828). A String Quartet (1834) was well received, but a lack of experience with strings likely inhibited her composing on a larger scale. In 1829 she married the artist Wilhelm Hensel, who actively encouraged her to publish under her own name, and acquainted her with musicians who were no less supportive. Several sets of songs and piano pieces appeared after 1846, but the effects of a stroke led to her death in Berlin in 1847. Just before, she had finished a succinctly emotional Piano Trio that is widely regarded as her masterpiece, to which Felix responded with his somber String Quartet in F minor before he himself died of a stroke barely six months later.