Fanny Mendelssohn grew up in a highly cultured home among four siblings. She was a virtuoso on the piano, but her father denied her the opportunity of a professional career – for her, music should be just ‘an extra piece of jewellery she could wear’. She therefore only played in private salons, never in public, and publishing music was also unthinkable. It was only a year before her untimely death at the age of 41 that she took the initiative to publish some of her compositions. Until then, she had only been able to publish in the name of her younger brother Felix.

The fact that Gartenlieder , a selection of her many choral songs, is published already as Op. 3 is a sign of how important this genre was to her. Set to carefully selected poems by Joseph von Eichendorff, Johann Ludwig Uhland, Emanuel Geibel and her husband, Wilhelm Hensel, they were composed in 1846, the year before her death. In the best Romantic style, they deal with the theme of nature, both wild and tamed, as a metaphor for the human mind.

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.