Reynaldo Hahn (composer)

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Reynaldo Hahn, photo by Félix Nadar.
Reynaldo Hahn, photo by Félix Nadar.

Reynaldo Hahn (born August 9, 1875 in Caracas, Venezuela, died January 28, 1947 in Paris, France) was a naturalised French composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty,[1] and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque.

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[edit] Child Prodigy

Born the youngest of twelve children, Reynaldo's father Carlos was an affluent engineer, inventor, and businessman of German-Jewish extraction; his mother, Elena María de Echenagucia, was a Venezuelan of Basque origin. The increasingly volatile political atmosphere in South America during the 1870s made it wise for his father to retire and leave Venezuela.

Hahn was just three years old when his family moved to Paris, and there is little doubt about the enormous impact this move would make on the future composer. Although he showed interest in his native music of Caracas in his youth, France would "determine and define Hahn's musical identity in later life".[2] The city and its cultural resources: the Paris Opéra, the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Opéra Comique, in addition to the nexus of artists and writers, must have been an ideal setting for the precocious Hahn.

A child prodigy, Reynaldo made his "professional" début at the salon of the eccentric beldam Princess de Metternich (Napoleon's niece).[2] Hahn played the piano accompaniment to his own singing of Jacques Offenbach's arias on this occasion; just a few years later at the age of eight, Hahn would compose his first songs.

Despite the Paris Conservatoire's tradition of antipathy towards child prodigies (Franz Liszt had famously been rebuffed by the school many years before), Hahn entered the school at the age of ten. His teachers included Jules Massenet, Charles Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns; Alfred Cortot and Maurice Ravel were fellow students.

[edit] Si mes vers avaient des ailes

Reynaldo Hahn, painting by Lucie Lambert, 1907.
Reynaldo Hahn, painting by Lucie Lambert, 1907.

In 1888 Reynaldo composed Si mes vers avaient des ailes to a poem by Victor Hugo; it was an instant success when published by Le Figaro. From this exposure and publicity, Hahn came into contact with many leading artists in Paris (in addition to the relationships he cultivated at the Conservatoire). The famed soprano Sybil Sanderson and the writer Alphonse Daudet invited Hahn into their social sphere. Hahn had "a special gift" of attracting "important people to his side".[3]

Like many other French song composers of the time, Hahn was attracted to Hugo's poetry. Many of the hallmarks of Hahn's music are already evident in Si mes vers: the undulating piano accompaniment, the vocal line derived from the patterns and intimacy of speech, the surprising intervals and cadences, the cleverly placed mezza voce, and the sophistication and depth of feeling--all the more impressive because he was only thirteen when he composed it.

Paul Verlaine, another poet whose lyrics inspired many of Reynaldo's most beautiful songs, had on one occasion a chance to hear the young composer's settings of his poems (which Hahn entitled Chansons grises, begun in 1887 when Hahn was twelve years old and finished three years later). The poet "wept to hear Hahn's songs". L'heure exquise, from Chansons, was undoubtedly one of the songs that brought tears to Verlaine's eyes. With its flowing piano accompaniment, gentle melody, and ingenious modulations, Hahn captured the limpid and languid beauty of its text. The poet Stephane Mallarmé, also present, wrote the following stanza:

Le pleur qui chante au langage
Du poète, Reynaldo
Hahn, tendrement le dégage
Comme en l'allée un jet d'eau.

[edit] Jean Santeuil

Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo.
marcel proust[2]

By the age of nineteen in 1894, Hahn had written many songs about love; however, his worldly sophistication masked shyness about his own personal feelings. He had close intimate friendships with women, and they were clearly fond of the gallant and charming young composer. Cléopatre-Diane de Mérode, a famous beauty of le beau monde and three years older than Hahn, inspired him to write: "I worship her as a great and perfect work of art". Despite this tribute to her, he reportedly loved her only at a distance his whole life. The famed courtesan Liane de Pougy wrote Hahn pleading love letters, although she knew he could never reciprocate her feelings. Perhaps most telling are personal letters Hahn wrote in which he was frequently critical of homosexuals and homosexuality.[4] This is understandable considering the epoch in which he lived: the disgrace of Oscar Wilde was to occur shortly.

1894 was to prove a fateful year for Hahn. At the home of artist Madeleine Lemaire, he met an aspiring writer three years older than himself. The writer was the then little-known, "highly strung and snobby" Marcel Proust. Proust and Hahn shared a love for painting, literature, and Fauré. They became lovers[5] and often traveled together and collaborated on various projects. One of those projects, Portraits de peintres (1896), is a work consisting of spoken text with piano accompaniment.

Hahn honed his writing skills during this period, becoming one of the best critics on music and musicians. Seldom appreciating his contemporaries, he instead admired the artists of the past (shown in his portraits of legendary figures). His writing, like Proust's, was characterized by a deft skill in depicting small details.

Proust's unfinished autobiographical novel Jean Santeuil, posthumously published and, by some, considered ill-structured, nevertheless shows nascent genius and foreshadows his masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu. Proust began to write it in 1895, one year after meeting Hahn (on whom the hero is reportedly based). Although by 1896 they were no longer lovers, they remained lifelong friends and supporters until Proust's death in 1922.

[edit] Maestro Hahn, Paris Opéra

As a conductor he specialised in Mozart, conducting the initial performances of the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Lilli Lehmann. He also served, in the 1920s and 1930s, as general manager of the Cannes Casino opera house. For many years he was the influential music critic of the leading Paris daily, Le Figaro.

Forced to leave Paris in 1940 during the Nazi occupation, he returned at the end of the war in 1945 to fulfill his appointment as director of the Paris Opéra. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards of a brain tumor, without executing the reforms for which his supporters had hoped. [6]

[edit] Le petit maître

[edit] His Works

See List of compositions by Reynaldo Hahn

[edit] References

  1. ^ Taylor, Deems. "Reynaldo Hahn."Music Lovers' Encyclopedia. 5th ed. 1950.
  2. ^ a b c Quinn, Michael (November 2004), “Will the Real Reynaldo Hahn Please Stand Up?”, The Gramophone: A15 
  3. ^ Johnson, Graham (1996). Felicity Lott, Susan Bickley, Ian Bostridge, Stephen Varcoe, Graham Johnson. In "Songs by Reynaldo Hahn" [CD Liner Notes]. London: Hyperion.
  4. ^ Carter, William C. Marcel Proust. Yale University Press (2000) p. 167.
  5. ^ Carter, William C. (2006), Proust in Love, Yale University Press, p. 31-5, ISBN 0300108125 
  6. ^ Johnson, Graham (1996). Felicity Lott, Susan Bickley, Ian Bostridge, Stephen Varcoe, Graham Johnson. In "Songs by Reynaldo Hahn" [CD Liner Notes]. London: Hyperion.

[edit] External links