Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fanny Mendelssohn's Das Jahr!

[UPDATE] Das Jahr is no longer in the WIMA, (it is now available commercially) but there's a some other free music by Hensel in the Petrucci Library.

I regularly troll around the various on-line music libraries in search of this piece or that. Lately, or at least for the past two years I have been hoping for a PDF edition of Fanny Mendelssohn's (or Fanny Hensel's) Das Jahr to pop up, and I can barely contain my excitement that the music for Das Jahr is in the Werner Icking Music Archive. The very kind person who did the computer engraving began with the month of June, which is one of my all-time favorite 19th-century piano pieces. It even sounds remarkable in a midi. I'm sending links to it to all my favorite local pianists, and sharing this "gem sighting" here.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks you so much for this link, I've also been looking for this beautiful piece of music. But where are March, April and May?

Elaine Fine said...

They will be there eventually. It takes time to enter all the notes!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the score!
but, there's also a 13. "afterpiece" will it be there?

Thanks!

Elaine Fine said...

Perhaps it would be a good idea to write to the person who contributed the piece to the WIMA and ask.

Audrey L said...

I was excited to find that, too. I spent over an hour looking for a pdf and found it today (same place you found yours).
I was hoping to find even a book with "Das Jahr" in it. Know of any?

Elaine Fine said...

Perhaps if we give it a Jahr or two, we will know more. I'm just thrilled at the progress that has been made with the discovery of her music. When you think that six or seven years ago it was nearly impossible to hear her music beyond just a piece or two, the prospects are really good that some contemporary person might have written about the music somewhere.

Kathleen Boyer said...

Hello Elaine! I found your blog in my search for Das Jahr by Fannie Mendelssohn. Such a lovely blog you've got here! I was excited to try the link to the music site, but they must have taken down the Mendelssohn Year - it's not there any more (at least that I can find.) I'm going to keep reading though . . . :-)

Kathleen Boyer said...

Thank you for telling us about the link, but I think they've taken down Das Jahr -- I coldn't find it anywhere!

Elaine Fine said...

Thanks for letting me know!

Perhaps the person who did all the engraving is planning to make the music available for sale. I'll keep a lookout elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

Either I'm blind or what but I don't see any Das Jahr pieces when I click on your link. Too bad, I absolutely love the music. The complete piece is available (for a mere $80 or so) here: http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Das-Jahr/16335506

Elaine Fine said...

Yes. They took it off in order to sell it. $80 is a lot, but there are a lot of notes, and it took a lot of time to rescue the piece from obscurity!

Anonymous said...

Found score in pdf format of Fanny Mendlessohn Das Jahr.

http://waltercosand.com/CosandScores/Composers%20L-P/Mendelssohn%20Hensel,%20Fanny/The_Year/