- Das Jahr is a suite of thirteen character pieces for piano representing the months of the year. The first twelve movements each depict a month, and the last is a Nachspiel, or postlude.
- Hensel composed this suite in 1841, the year after an extended visit to Italy with her husband and son. Fanny Hensel had wanted to travel to Italy for many years (her brother had gone there to absorb the musical culture in 1830). Her 1840 trip was an artistically fulfilling experience which inspired a number of new compositions, including her Reisealbum (Travel Album) and Das Jahr.
- Several moments in Das Jahr reflect the Italian trip, particularly the movement “February,” a tarantella depicting Venetian carnival season.
- Das Jahr was something of a multimedia, interdisciplinary collaboration between Fanny Hensel and her husband Wilhelm, who was Berlin’s royal court painter. The Hensels assembled the scores of Das Jahr into a manuscript volume, with each movement of music prefaced by a literary quotation selected by Fanny, and each movement decorated with a vignette painted by Wilhelm.1
Movements
1. January. Ein Traum (A Dream)
2. February. Scherzo
3. March. This movement quotes the Easter chorale “Christ ist erstanden” (Christ is Arisen).
4. April. Capriccioso
5. May. Frühlingslied (Spring Song)
6. June. Serenade
7. July.
8. August.
9. September. Am Flusse (By the River)
10. October.
11. November.
12. December. This movement quotes the Christmas chorale “Von Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her” (From Heaven High I Come to You).
13. Nachspiel. Choral (Chorale). This movement is a Bach-inspired chorale prelude on “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist” (The Old Year is Over).
Sources
- 15Angela Mace Christian, “Hensel [née Mendelssohn (-Bartholdy)], Fanny Cäcilie,” Grove Music Online (November 28, 2018), accessed June 3, 2021, https://ww.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-3000000159.
Cut IDs
16907 21498 24219