Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix's older sister, has been long and unjustly overlooked as a serious composer, despite a considerable and impressive output comprising numerous piano pieces, duets, trios, choral works, chamber music for different instruments, an overture, an oratorio, several major cantatas—and innumerable songs. She was writing music at a time when it was considered unsuitable for a woman from the upper middle classes to have ambitions as a professional musician. Despite her gifts and desire for recognition, throughout most of her life Fanny respected the prevailing conventions and the wishes of her family, and accepted the prescribed role of a cultivated Berlin lady of her time.

This recording is devoted to nearly 30 of her beautiful songs, most of them appearing on disc for the first time. The poets include Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, Rückert, Lenau and Geibel, most of whom were known to her personally. It has also been something a 'labour of love' for the two artists, Susan Gritton and Eugene Asti, and they have together written the extensive booklet notes.