Yulianna Avdeeva

If only we had some orchestral music by her as well! Fanny Hensel left behind an overture, a few cantatas, wonderful chamber music, and a large number of songs and piano pieces. But when, at the age of forty—with the support of her husband Wilhelm Hensel (and despite the reservations of her brother Felix Mendelssohn)—she finally began to make a name for herself as a “public” composer with published works, she had only a little over a year left to live. There will therefore never be a symphony by Fanny Hensel. Instead, composer Detlev Glanert has now orchestrated her major piano cycle “Das Jahr” (The Year). This is no easy task, as the pianist—who was highly acclaimed in her day—wrote a delicate, transparent, and virtuosic piano part. The twelve pieces for each month and the contemplative postlude combine moods, impressions of the landscape, and chorales into a grand poetic whole. It has often been suggested that the trip to Italy, which Hensel had taken two years earlier with her husband and their nine-year-old son, provided the decisive inspiration here.

If Béla Bartók, too, drew inspiration from a landscape for his First Piano Concerto, it must have been a truly fantastical nocturnal landscape: rugged and pulsating, with a piano that at times seemed to belong among the percussion instruments, and at other times was beguilingly sensual and mysteriously luminous. An imaginative, astonishing piece that has lost none of its power in the hundred years since its creation. Indeed, unlike Fanny Hensel, Béla Bartók was able to revel in his role as an “enfant terrible.” Pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, who has been established internationally in the very top tier of pianists since winning the 2010 Chopin Competition, will bring out all the facets of Bartók’s music.

Program:
Béla Bartók – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1
– INTERMISSION –
Fanny Hensel – “Das Jahr,” orchestrated by Detlev Glanert

Cast
; Orchestra: Musikkollegium
; Conductor: Roberto González-Monjas
; Piano: Yulianna Avdeeva

Single tickets for subscription concerts can be booked starting August 20, 2026. Until then, please send us an email specifying the desired ticket category and the number of tickets.