CFK Blog: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Das Jahr

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.