The gifted song composer Josephine Lang was born on March 14, 1815 in Munich into a family of musicians. Her encounter with the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1830 was a turning point in her artistic development. She recalled, “Meeting this Master brought about a complete transformation in my being. His spirit brought me light, his work gave me an ideal.” Mendelssohn had the idea that Josephine Lang should come to his parents’ house in Berlin to receive piano lessons from his sister Fanny and composition lessons from Friedrich Zelter. But the father couldn’t bring himself to let his daughter go. Nevertheless, Felix Mendelssohn remained a model for the 16-year-old composer on the path to musical maturity. In the 1830s Mendelssohn expanded their musical circles and increased their productivity. Josephine Lang published at least five collections of songs between 1834 and 1838 and was recognized in the Neue Zeitung für Musik. Concerts on a larger scale took place. Josephine Lang was a versatile composer, stylistically somewhere between Mendelssohn and Schumann.
