• Composer: KINKEL, Johanna (1810 - 1858)
• Genre : art song / Lieder
• Composition date : 1838
• 979-0-708209-29-4

Johanna Kinkel's life story has a strong resonance with the women of today. She was a working mother who, in her short life, was effected by sexual inequality, domestic abuse and revolution. She wrote books and composed music, and earned a living as a piano and singing teacher. Her writings reveal that she faced all the same problems as music teachers of today !

Our new 2025 edition of the opus 7 songs has an improved layout and revamped translations by Rosalind Trübger, enabling the songs to be performed with the original German text or sung in English, as the rhyming translations closely follow the original meter, meaning and rhyme pattern.

Rosalind's note: 'My possible favourite of the six songs is 'Wunsch', which is a charming and slightly cheeky depiction of how c.19th conventions frustrate a lovesick girl, who wishes that she dared to kiss her boyfriend.

SHORT AUDIO SAMPLES:

for longer samples : click to open in Soundcloud 

Johanna Kinkel (also Mathieux, Mockel) made her mark in the worlds of both music and literature and her life makes a fascinating story. Born in Bonn (Germany) she studied music with Beethoven’s teacher. As an adult, she spent time in Berlin, and was a friend of Fanny Mendelssohn, before she got caught up in the revolutionary events of 1849,eventually helping her husband, Gottfried Kinkel, to escape from Spandau prison before emigrating with him and their four children to London. There her short life ended tragically when she fell (or was pushed?) from her bedroom window in near Paddington station.