Johanna Kinkel (1810–1858)

Maria Johanna Kinkel (née Mockel, formerly Mathieux) — German composer, pianist, music pedagogue, writer, salonnière, and revolutionary — was born on 8 July 1810 in Bonn and died on 15 November 1858 in London. She was one of the most productive women composers of the German Romantic era, a pioneer of women’s rights, a political journalist, and the only significant representative of 19th-century Bonn dialect literature.

Her tombstone was inscribed: Freiheit, Liebe und Dichtung — “Freedom, Love, and Poetry.”

Early Life & Musical Formation

Johanna Mockel was born to Catholic parents — her father, Peter Joseph Mockel, was a school teacher at the Bonner Lycée, and her mother Anna Maria initially encouraged her in domestic arts. By age 15, Johanna knew she wanted to be a musician. Through her father’s connections, she came into contact with Franz Anton Ries (1755–1846), the distinguished Bonn violinist who had previously tutored the young Beethoven. Ries gave her piano lessons and entrusted her with the direction of his “Musikalisches Kränzchen” (Musical Circle), which she led from 1829 to 1832.

At 19 she composed her first major work, the Vogelkantate (“Bird Cantata”), Op. 1, for her musical society in Bonn. The revised version was published in 1838 by Trautwein in Berlin.

In 1825–26 in Cologne she met the poet and composer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, whom she visited in 1831 and who continued to inquire after her as late as 1843.

First Marriage to Matthieux (1832–1840)

In 1832, at 22, Johanna married the Cologne bookseller and music dealer Johann Paul Matthieux. The marriage quickly became restrictive and abusive — Matthieux forbade his young wife from any activity beyond domestic duties and tyrannized her psychologically. After six months her parents retrieved their physically and psychologically ill daughter. A medical report spoke of “nervous breakdown with wasting fever, caused by maltreatment through calculated torments.” After over a year of recovery, she resumed musical activity in Bonn. The divorce was not finalized until 1840 after a prolonged legal process.

Studies in Berlin (1836–1839)

Meeting Felix Mendelssohn

In 1836, through the introduction of Dorothea Schlegel, Johanna met the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn in Frankfurt. Mendelssohn praised her musical talents and encouraged her to go to Berlin to pursue advanced studies.

Teachers: Taubert and Böhmer

On Mendelssohn’s recommendation she went to Berlin, where she studied:

• Composition (thoroughbass/Generalbass) under Karl Böhmer
• Concert piano under the virtuoso Wilhelm Taubert

She financed her studies by giving private piano lessons.

Friendships: Bettina von Arnim, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Others

Through Georg von Brentano, whom she had met in Frankfurt, Johanna formed a close friendship with the celebrated author and salonnière Bettina von Arnim, in whose home she lodged for five months. She gave free piano lessons to von Arnim’s children, and a small opera (Savigny und Themis) composed by Johanna was performed by the children at a birthday celebration for the jurist Friedrich Karl von Savigny in 1838.

She became close friends with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (Felix’s sister, a renowned composer and pianist in her own right) and Rebecka Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Dirichlet). She participated in Fanny’s famous Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday musical concerts) — private gatherings that were among the most important musical salons in Berlin.

Through Bettina von Arnim’s salon she also met Clara Wieck (later Clara Schumann), the poet Adelbert von Chamisso, the diplomat and writer Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, and the poet Emanuel Geibel.

An Extraordinarily Productive Period

The Berlin years were Johanna’s most fruitful compositional period. She wrote duets, cantatas, and art songs (Lieder), setting poetry by Goethe, Geibel, and her own texts. Her works were praised by major critics including Ludwig Rellstab and Robert Schumann and enjoyed considerable popularity. All her works from this period are characterized as fine examples of Romantic Gebrauchsmusik (utilitarian/salon music of high quality).

Return to Bonn & the Maikäferbund (1839–1848)

After her first marriage was finally dissolved in 1840, Johanna returned to Bonn, where she organized morning concerts and re-established her choral society — one of the first in Germany directed by a woman. She became the center of musical life in Bonn, attracting the admiration of artists such as Franz Liszt with her performances.

In May 1839, she renewed her acquaintance with Gottfried Kinkel, a former student of her father’s. Together they founded the Maikäferbund (“Maybug Group”), a late-Romantic literary circle that met regularly and produced a handwritten journal circulated only among its members. She was the only woman to contribute writing — poems, stories, anecdotes, and music-critical essays — to the journal.

Maikäferbund Members

The Maikäferbund included notable figures:

• Jacob Burckhardt (the future Swiss art historian and author of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy)
• Karl Simrock (poet and translator of the Nibelungenlied)
• Willibald Beyschlag and Franz Beyschlag
• Alexander Kaufmann
• Wilhelm Junkmann

The group held an annual festival and lasted until the 1848 revolution.

Marriage to Gottfried Kinkel (1843)

Because the Catholic Church forbade remarriage of divorced persons, Johanna converted to the Lutheran church. After a 36-month waiting period mandated by the still-applicable Code Napoléon in the Rhineland, she married Gottfried Kinkel in 1843. They had four children together by 1848.

Revolutionary Activities & the Escape from Spandau (1848–1850)

With her husband and their student Carl Schurz, Johanna co-edited the Neue Bonner Zeitung (“New Bonn Newspaper”), in which she published regular musical and theatrical reviews alongside political content devoted to the revolutionary cause. She also wrote her own revolutionary songs — including a Demokratenlied (“Democrat’s Song”) first performed on 5 December 1848.

During Gottfried’s absence as a deputy in Berlin and then as a revolutionary combatant, Johanna took over sole editorial responsibility for the newspaper.

Karl Marx, who was publishing the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne during the 1848–49 revolution, attempted to hire Johanna as a translator of English texts — but Gottfried refused on her behalf.

When Gottfried was captured, wounded in battle, and sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau Prison, Johanna played a central role in organizing his escape. She arranged the financial resources required and transmitted the escape plans to her imprisoned husband. The daring rescue was carried out by Carl Schurz on the night of 6–7 November 1850. Schurz and Kinkel fled through Neubrandenburg, Teterow, and Rostock to Warnemünde, sailing to Edinburgh on 17 November 1850.

Exile in London (1851–1858)

In January 1851, Johanna followed her husband to London with their four children. During Gottfried’s fundraising tour across the United States (September 1851 – February 1852), she was the family’s sole breadwinner. She founded a children’s singing school and gave private piano and voice lessons.

Musical Scholarship & Writing

Pressed for time by the demands of supporting the family, Johanna composed only sparingly during the London years. However, she continued her intellectual work:

• Wrote musicological essays and lectures on Mendelssohn, Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven
• Produced a critical analysis of Chopin that is still regarded by historians as a valuable source
• Directed performances of works by Gluck and Spohr
• Completed her autobiographical novel Hans Ibeles in London: ein Familienbild aus dem Flüchtlingsleben (published posthumously in 1860)
• Published Acht Briefe an eine Freundin über Clavier-Unterricht (“Eight Letters to a Friend on Piano Instruction,” 1852) — a pedagogical work on piano teaching

Carl Schurz, in his Reminiscences (3 vols., 1907), devoted many pages to Johanna, noting she deepened his knowledge of the piano and its repertoire, particularly Beethoven and Chopin.

Death (15 November 1858)

Earlier in life, Johanna had suffered a heart attack from which she initially recovered, but her health deteriorated severely during 1858. On the afternoon of 15 November 1858, she fell from the third-story window of her bedroom. The circumstances pointed toward suicide prompted by depression, though this could never be conclusively verified.

The musicologist Eva Weissweiler has argued for the suicide interpretation, pointing to “more or less clearly” formulated suicidal intent in Johanna’s novel Hans Ibeles in London. Weissweiler wrote:

Weissweiler further notes that Johanna was the only one among the major Romantic women composers (Fanny Hensel, Josephine Caroline Lang, Clara Schumann) to have “thought through to its conclusion the problem of ‘woman and composition’” — concluding that “after a political catastrophe [like the revolution of 1848], composing was simply no longer possible.”

The poet Ferdinand Freiligrath honoured his political comrade with a long poem: Nach Johanna Kinkel’s Begräbniß (“After Johanna Kinkel’s Burial”).

She was 48 years old.

Burial

Johanna Kinkel is buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, alongside two of her daughters: Marie Kinkel (January–February 1861) and Johanna Kinkel (1845–1863).

Connections to Famous Individuals

Notable Works

Musical Compositions

Literary Works

Legacy in Other Works

In 1853, the German composer Elise Schmezer premiered her opera Otto der Schütz, which was based on earlier works by Alexandre Dumas and Johanna Kinkel.

Remembrance

• A street in Bonn is named after Johanna Kinkel
• A memorial plaque in the Bonngasse in Bonn commemorates her
• A plaque marks her birthplace (the Mockel family home) in the Josefstraße, Bonn
• In 2010, on her 200th birthday, a marionette theatre piece based on her children’s story Dä Hond on dat Eechhohn was premiered at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Haus in Bonn
• Free scores of her compositions are available at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) and the Choral Public Domain Library
• Works at Project Gutenberg

Sources

• Johanna Kinkel — Wikipedia (English)
• Johanna Kinkel — Wikipedia (German) — substantially more detailed article
• Johanna Kinkel — IMSLP — catalogue of 15 compositions with scores
• Franz Anton Ries — Wikipedia — her first teacher, who also taught Beethoven
• Monika Klaus, Johanna Kinkel: Romantik und Revolution (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2008) — the definitive modern biography
• Anja Bunzel, The Songs of Johanna Kinkel: Genesis, Reception, Context (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2020)
• Eva Weissweiler, Komponistinnen vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 1999), pp. 225–242
• Carl Schurz, Reminiscences (3 vols., New York: McClure, 1907) — extensive recollections of Johanna
• Otto Maußer, “Kinkel, Gottfried und Johanna Kinkel,” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 55 (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1910), pp. 515–528
• Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), “Kinkel, Johann Gottfried”
• The American Cyclopædia (1879), “Kinkel, Johann Gottfried”
• Nachlass (estate papers) of Johanna and Gottfried Kinkel at the University Library, Bonn

Portrait

The portrait image (Johanna_Kinkel.jpg) is a faithful photographic reproduction of a public-domain work of art, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Keywords: #Johanna #Kinkel