09/05/2025
Following an acclaimed debut on Piano Classics, dedicated to F***y Mendelssohn-Hensel’s piano sonatas, Gaia Sokoli addresses perhaps her most individual work for piano. She pairs the cycle of Das Jahr with three Charakterstücke from 1846, never previously recorded. There appears to be no precedent for the form of Das Jahr – 12 character-pieces, each dedicated to a month of the year, concluding with a Postlude – which F***y composed a full 35 years before Tchaikovsky wrote his celebrated piano cycle of The Seasons Op.37a (1875-76).
💎Read more information on this release on our Piano Classics here: https://www.piano-classics.com/articles/f/fanny-mendelssohn-das-jahr/
🎵 You can also find purchasing, streaming and downloading options here: https://pianoclassics.lnk.to/FMendelssohnDasJahrFA
🎥 Check out this music video by Gaia Sokoli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtEo6gecCA
The genesis of Das Jahr dates from a trip to Italy in 1839-40. F***y accomplished a personal and indeed ‘modern’ union of notes, images and words. Her idiomatic writing for the piano encompasses a full spectrum of imagery, evoking mandolins (in June), horns (August), bells (July), and the flow of a Tyrolean river in September, coupled with verses from Goethe: ‘Flow, flow, dear river / I will never become happy.’ Thematic, rhythmic and coloristic elements recur through the course of Das Jahr, lending it a persuasive unity. Listening to the 13 pieces in sequence allows the listener to immerse themselves in F***y’s poetic world: an intimate diary in sound expressed in an ‘emotional dictionary’ of great intensity.
Gaia Sokoli completes this illuminating album with three Charakterstücke H414, H442 and H452. They were composed in 1846: a fruitful year for the composer, in which her creativity was perhaps stimulated by the first appearance in print of her music. They demonstrate the finesse of her technique, while also indicating a stylistic evolution in their more advanced harmonies and less constrained swings of expression when compared with Das Jahr.
***yMendelssohn
