Youth Klavierstücke 1820-1821
Earliest piano compositions
This collection is comprised of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s seven earliest surviving piano compositions, written when she was 14-15 years old. Despite how early these works are, several aspects of Fanny’s musical inventiveness and pianistic ability are already on display. The piece in E minor (H29) is in the style that she and her brother Felix would perfect and name later in their careers—the piano lied, or song without words. Works H37, H39, and H40 are technical exercises which demonstrate Fanny’s capacity for nimble playing and navigating quick, wide leaps. In these works she also plays with compositional techniques she may have picked up from her favorite composer, J.S. Bach; H40 features inversion of the theme halfway through the piece, and H41 is structured around a bit of musical cryptography on the notes B-flat, E, G, and A-flat (B-E-G-As).