Clara Schumann's Das Jahr

Fanny Mendelssohn began composing Das Jahr (The Year) in 1841. It was later published in 1989. This is a cycle of pieces based on the months of the year. It resembles a musical diary of the time she and her family spent in Rome. What is interesting about this collection is that each piece is illustrated by her husband, Wilhelm Hensel, who is a painter. Some pictures can be found online; notice that the music was written on colored sheets of paper: (e.g. January, April, June )

There are a few things that strike me while listening to this piece:

I thought the month of January would sound festive because of the beginning of a new year. However, the piece starts out somber and somewhat melancholy. It almost seems as if someone is looking back to the past. The postlude has a similar temperament but with a somewhat delightfully triumphant mood.

According to Toews, there are three traditional Lutheran chorales cited and reworked in this piece: “Christ ist erstanden” in “March” (Lutheran Chorale), “Vom Himmel Hoch da komm ich hier” in “Decmber” (Christmas Chorale), and “Das Alte Jahr Vergangen ist” in the postlude. Seemingly, the cycle appears to give reference to holidays such as Easter, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. This raises the following question: why would she include Bach’s pieces during her trip in Italy?