During her lifetime, Fanny Hensel was overshadowed by her brother Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who was three years her junior, and for a long time she was regarded merely as an occasional composer. It was only when the Mendelssohn Bartholdy family’s extensive collection of sheet music came into the possession of the Berlin State Library that the diversity of her compositional output became apparent: all together, Fanny Hensel wrote over 400 compositions, including piano pieces and especially songs, mostly for solo voice with piano accompaniment, but also many choral works, chamber music and some orchestral works. The position of women in her day and her social standing did not allow her to show publicly her exceptional talent as a musician and composer. “Music may be a profession for him [Felix], while for you it can and should only ever be an accessory, never the basis of your being and doing…” her father stated. It was only with the support of her husband, the court painter and poet Wilhelm Hensel, that she succeeded in first publishing her compositions – against the wishes of her family – shortly before her early death in 1847, including the six so-called Garden Songs Op. 3 for mixed choir. In the previous year, she had composed 17 choral pieces for mixed choir to texts by Lenau, Geibel, Goethe, Uhland, Eichendorff and Wilhelm Hensel, among others, in addition to a wealth of piano works and songs. The songs in this volume come from this treasure trove and are, as so often with Fanny Hensel, characterised by a yearning melancholy, and sometimes sad tone. They are technically outstanding, with a strong sense for colourful harmonies and their emotional effect.

The name SAM-Klang takes the three voice parts from the arrangements – Soprano, Alto and Men – and combines it with the Scandinavian and German words for ‘sound’ to create the portmanteau word ‘sound together’ or ‘harmony’. The SAM-Klang series offers basic and advanced choral repertoire arranged for soprano, alto and one male voice- part. In addition to new repertoire and new arrangements, you will also find essential parts of the classical German, Scandinavian, French and English SATB repertoire, carefully and considerately reworked for SAM. The arrangements retain the characteristic features of the original movements and have almost the same richness of timbre, resulting in works which sound nearly unchanged to an audience. Piano reductions of all choral movements facilitate rehearsal preparation. The arrangements offer development opportunities for all voice sections, bringing new life and new quality to SAM choir work. SAM-Klang enables youth choirs to gain access to classical choral literature and ensures that mixed choirs who face challenges in finding singers for all male voice parts continue to have access to well-loved repertoire.