Reynaldo - Naxos Music Library

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Reynaldo Hahn’s piano music Nothing is as effective as the relentless accumulation of clichés to dull an artist’s reputation: for his entire life, Reynaldo Hahn was labeled as a composer of salon music, a lightweight, whose compositions were written to satisfy the academic tastes of social circles in the Belle Époque and during the period between the two wars. Luckily however, in recent years, a handful of performers and publishers have allowed us to discover the incredible diversity of his eclectic and enchanting work. While not widely known, his piano music is perhaps one of the most original aspects of his talent. The outstanding recordings presented in this boxed set of four CDs should help in banishing those long held prejudices. The youngest child of a large, wealthy and highly accomplished family, Reynaldo was born in Caracas in 1874. He was three years old when his family moved from Venezuela to Paris. A prodigy, his entire family worked to make the most of his multiple talents, fostering the development of his extraordinary musical sensitivity and creativity. Admitted to the Paris Conservatory, he was able to acquire a solid musical education without which he would have been nothing but a dilettante. From the age of eleven he had become part of Massenet’s composition class and thanks to the Maestro’s support he was able to publish his first compositions and appear in public. In 1898, the Opéra-Comique staged his L’Île du rêve” according to Pierre Loti. In social circles Reynaldo had been equally precocious, having made his debut in Princess Mathilde’s famous salon at the age of six. His intelligence, wit and talent enabled him to captivate all of Paris’s beau-monde. He approached all of his activities with the same impassioned fervor: composer, singer, conductor, critic, and lecturer. Over the years, an untiring Reynaldo Hahn established himself as one of the most prominent figures in the public eye. All of the important cities in Europe vied for this witty man whose music embodied French elegance and charm so well. Since early childhood, the piano was part of Hahn’s family life. His earliest composition to have left a trace is a waltz for piano and has a revealing title: L’Inspiration (CD 3 - tr. 13). His predilection for waltzes profoundly marked his development as a composer from his piano compositions through to his musical comedies (Ciboulette, Une Revue…) without
forgetting his ballets (La Fête chez Thérèse). Listening to the Premières valses (CD 4 - tr. 5 to 15) the hushed, opulent atmosphere of the salons comes flooding back in its entirety. The music, seductive for its intrinsic melodic charm and languishing harmonies, alternates between sentimental and passionate (waltzes n. 5, 9 and 10) and carefree and cheerful (waltzes n. 1, 2 and 3). There is no need to read the pages of Reynaldo Hahn’s autobiographical writings - he put everything in his piano music, a veritable mirror of his joys and sorrows! Since early childhood, the instrument was his confidant. This musical diary shows a predilection for the short form, a better vehicle for capturing the vaporous essence of emotions and feelings. Thus each piece in the album Juvénilia (CD 3 - tr. 14 to 19) appears as a stage in miniature. Promenade e Feuillage restores the memory of a glimpse of the forest of Saint-Germain. The unpublished manuscripts 1 that Cristina Ariagno (CD 3 - tr. 1 to 12) found also tap into this autobiographical vein. Intimate snippets written solely «for himself and a few select friends» (according to Magda Tagliaferro), these are the secrets of an adolescent in the Belle Époque that have been preserved in all their spontaneous charm and whimsical improvisation. Reynaldo Hahn’s piano music draws on a surprising variety of sources of inspiration, coherent with the eclectic temperament of the composer who was an aesthete attracted to all types of artistic disciplines: «you love music above all else and I regret with all my heart that I am not like you. There certainly are many things that I love just as much - I don’t dare say more - as music and I blush at my confession; I love art as a whole, in a vision of all arts reunited». So he confided to his friend the pianist Edouard Risler, a vision which corresponded with the same opinion Marcel Proust had expressed in 1895. To Reynaldo «the way of envisioning music (…) derives completely naturally from his temperament as a literary musician». The musical tale, Au Claire de lune (CD 3 - tr. 20 to 30) reveals eleven sentimental short scenes, illustrated by both the drawings and text by Louis Montegut - the cousin of Alphonse Daudet - and by Reynaldo Hahn’s naïve and descriptive music. In the Portraits de Peintres (CD 4 - tr. 1 to 4), inspired by his friend Marcel Proust’s poems, Reynaldo paints in music the world of Cuyp, Potter, Van Dyke and Watteau. The first
Page 1 and 2: Reynaldo Hahn Caracas, 1874 - Paris
Page 3 and 4: 21. La Danse de l’Amour et de l
Page 5 and 6: IV Versailles 16. Hommage à Martiu
Page 7 and 8: Au Clair de lune*, conte en musique
Page 9 and 10: Sonatine en Ut majeur (1907) 16. I
Page 11 and 12: Credits In collaboration with: Bert
Page 13 and 14: profondamente il suo percorso creat
Page 15 and 16: forma di variazioni sul tema, dalla
Page 17 and 18: La musique pour piano de Reynaldo H
Page 19 and 20: et l’élément terrien, tel ce ry
Page 21: Les meilleures pièces pour piano d
Page 25 and 26: du siècle by René Peter. In this
Page 27 and 28: Música para piano de Reynaldo Hahn
Page 29 and 30: en música Au Clair de lune (CD 3 -
Page 31 and 32: las lágrimas». Quien lo escuche e
Page 33 and 34: Cristina Ariagno Ces dernières ann
Page 35 and 36: Cristina Ariagno En estos años Cri
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Reynaldo - Naxos Music Library

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