Markus Wenz, piano with an introduction by Christian Thorau, 60′.

Markus Wenz has re-recorded Fanny Hensel’s piano cycle “The Year” – for the first time with both versions of the month “June” as well as the “Farewell to Rome”. “The Year” is one of the most important works of Romantic music.

“Markus Wenz plays the piano pieces of the cycle ‘Das Jahr’ without false Biedermeier sentimentality, he does not conceal the breaks that point far into the future. And he makes you feel that Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel thought orchestrally at more than one point, which is why it is all the more bitter that she was prevented from exercising her talent publicly.”
Harald Asel (rbb-inforadio Kultur)

It makes certain stylistic features that one perceives as ‘typically Mendelssohn’ on first hearing appear in a different light. It is remarkable how similar the two siblings composed: many of Fanny’s character pieces could also be in her brother’s oeuvre, such as the fairy-like ‘December’ with its diminished chords flitting by in pianissimo (Allegro molto) on the keynote of the ever-prevailing C minor. A winter fairy tale as a replica of the Brother’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. And might not the silvery glitter of September (‘Am Fluss’) have been the inspiration for the expressive theme of the cellos in the Elijah aria ‘Es ist genug’?

Markus Wenz
The multiple prize-winner of ‘Jugend musiziert’ and scholarship holder of
studied in Hanover with Karl Engel and in Berlin with
in Berlin with Klaus Hellwig. He has developed a wide-ranging and full artistic-pedagogical profile from his pianistic engagements in concerts and radio recordings at home and abroad and his teaching activities at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin and the various Berlin music schools.