Brimming with fresh insights, this volume offers a comprehensive overview of the personal, cultural, intellectual, professional, political and religious contexts in which immensely gifted brother and sister Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn) and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy lived and worked. Based on the latest research, it explores nineteenth-century musical culture from different yet complementary perspectives, including gender roles, private vs public music-making, cultural institutions, and reception history. Thematically organised, concise chapters cover a broad range of topics from family, friends and colleagues, to poetry, art and aesthetics, foreign travel, celebrity and legacy. With contributions from a host of Mendelssohn and Hensel experts as well as leading scholars from disciplines beyond musicology it sheds new light on the environments in which the Mendelssohns moved, promoting a deeper understanding their music.