Su Das Jahr di Fanny Hensel: uno studio in due parti

Fanny Hensel (1805–1847), an excellent musician and composer no less gifted than her brother Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, has a collection of 460 compositions, but until a few years ago only a small amount of her music had been published. Up until 1989, when the first manuscript (MA Ms. 47) was published in Furore Verlag, Das Jahr (1841–1842) was also unknown. However, it was only in 2000 that the first piano calendar in the history of music could be fully appreciated, when the same publishing house published the finished copy (MA Ms. 155). This copy contains, in addition to Fanny’s music, illustrations on coloured paper sheets, made by her husband Wilhelm Hensel (1794–1861) and poetic verses by various authors.

This study intends to highlight some specific features of the collection that can be ascribed to Fanny’s compositional style and artistic personality, in particular with reference to her tendency towards autobiography. In the first part, by Paola Maurizi (on the MA Ms. 155), the theme is examined in relation to the original multimedia character of the work and the internal narrative of the Charakterstü- cke. In the second part, by Maria Grazia Sità (on the edition of the MA Ms. 47), it is instead treated in relation to her brother’s production and other intertextual references present in some passages.