Reynaldo - Naxos Music Library

du siècle by René Peter. In this slightly whacky work where the pastiches of Reboux and
Muller mix with the burlesque drawings by Peter, we are very long way away from Massenet’s
universe. La Création du Monde raises the curtain on an unexpected facet of Reynaldo
Hahn, revealing traces of zany humor reminiscent of the spirit of Erik Satie. Although eight
years his senior, the iconoclast and Reynaldo had crossed paths at the beginning of the 1890’s
when both of them participated in the band of merry men who called themselves the «vieilles
poules». Musically, this «musical preface» however is less the echo of the Maestro Arcueil
than Debussy; it mocks the linguistic tics and harmonies of Debussy whom Reynaldo Hahn
did not appreciate, much to his friend Marcel Proust’s great disappointment.
Le Rossignol éperdu, (CD 1 and 2) is a mature work coming at the culmination of a
successful piano career and stands as a vast collection of 53 poems for the piano - a windfall
from a composer inclined to experiment the most diverse experiences and who here explored
new paths! In it he develops a wide range of refined sounds, a sweeping palette of harmonies
where sweetness (CD 1 - tr. 7: Les Deux Écharpes) mixes with strangeness (CD 1 - tr. 22:
Ouranos) thus creating a language that enchants and, occasionally, becomes harsh and
vigorous forgetting to be delicate (CD 1 - tr. 8: Liebe! Liebe!). On the contrary, compositions
like Soliele d’automne (CD 1 - tr. 5) or Adieux au soir tombant (CD 2 - tr. 21) allow a
burning tenderness to break through and which one hears to be asking to expand into the
song. The composer is indeed the «Rossignol éperdu» who bit by bit resembles the scattered
pages of the artist’s diary, which he himself confesses to have written «holding back the
tears». Here, depending on his tastes, the listener will find loads of intimate secrets (CD 1 - tr.
6: Gretchen; CD 2 - tr. 23: le Pèlerinage inutile) a choice of tableaux suggested by nature
(CD 1 - tr. 24: Effet de nuit sur la Siene; CD 1 - tr. 23: Les Héliotropes du Clos-André) or by
art (CD 2 - tr. 11: Les Noces du Duc de Joyeuse ), without forgetting that magnificent parade
of memories inspired by the trips Reynaldo undertook: to Venice (CD 1 - tr. 25: Per I piccoli
canali), to Nuremberg (CD 2 - tr. 9: La Nativité), or to Constantinople (CD 2 - tr. 4: Rêverie
nocturne sur le Bosphore). In paging through the collection of the Rossignol éperdu, one
comes across a number of quotations. Placed as epigraphs on one or another piece, they