A. Kori Hill
Das Jahr (The Year) is a character piece by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. It’s thirteen movements–twelve are inspired by each month of the year–and the last one is an outro that wraps everything up. Fanny finished it in 1841 and gave it as a Christmas gift to her husband, Wilhelm. He was a creative person like Fanny, but he was an illustrator and painter. Fanny left a bit of space in the upper corner of the manuscript for Wilhelm to put his stamp on it as well. So now when you look at the manuscript of Fanny’s Das Jahr, you’ll see Wilhelm’s illustrations at the start of each movement.
Das Jahr is one of Fanny Hensel’s most popular works. It’s been recorded many times and is still performed today. It’s what we call a character piece: an instrumental work that reflects something extra-musical: a piece of art, an emotion, or a story. We use this term for shorter instrumental pieces versus programmatic music, which is typically used for symphonic works like Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
Since we’re leaving summer and heading towards fall, we’ll listen to No. 8 “August” and No. 9 “September: The River” from Das Jahr. Before each movement, Fanny included a stanza from a poem. August starts with one from German poet Friedrich Schiller’s “Das Lied von der Glocke” (“Song of the Bell”). It reads:
Bunt von farben
Aug den Garben
Liegt der Kranz.
Bright with color
Upon the sheaves
Lies the garland.
Fanny builds “August” on a jubilant main theme. It emerges as fragments at first, as if she doesn’t know if she’ll finish it. But then she does and it’s beautiful and exciting and amazing! The main theme is in the right hand; the left hand is mainly supportive, but there are moments where it helps drive and enhance the melody. This movement is in rondo form: we hear the main theme in between new sections; one’s perky and military like, another rhapsodic and sweeping. Pay attention to how Fanny brings the melody back; if it sounds the same every time, if it’s different depending on when it returns. Does it appear near the end and if it does, is it voiced the same way as in the beginning?
“September: The River” opens with a stanza from “An dem Mond” (“To the Moon”) by Johann Goethe, one of the most celebrated German poets of Fanny’s time:
Fließe fließe, liebe Fluß,
Nimmer werd’ ich froh.
Flow, flow, dear river,
I shall never be happy.
The mood is immediately morose. This isn’t a happy river; the melody is minor and isn’t in the higher register; Fanny gives it to the left hand. There are moments of sunlight though. Note when major modes peek out from the texture; if the melody is ever given to the right hand; and how Fanny not only evokes the flow of water but the emotions that Goethe expresses in this particular stanza.
