Reynaldo Hahn
Encyclopedia
Venezuelan people
Venezuelan people are from a multiethnic nation in South America called Venezuela. Venezuelans are predominantly Roman Catholic and speak Spanish, and a majority of them are the result of a mixture of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians.-Demography:...
, naturalised
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
French, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie
Mélodie
Mélodie refers to French art songs of the mid-19th century to the present; it is the French equivalent of the German Lied. It is distinguished from a chanson, which is a folk or popular song.-Nature of the mélodie:...
.
The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque
Belle Époque
The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...
.
Child prodigy
Reynaldo Hahn was born in CaracasCaracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Venezuela, 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 Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
, (Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
), origin. The increasingly volatile political atmosphere in South America during the 1870s caused his father to retire and leave Venezuela.
Hahn's family moved to Paris when he was three years old. 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". The city and its cultural resources: the Paris Opéra, the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, in addition to the nexus of artists and writers, proved an ideal setting for the precocious Hahn.
A child prodigy, Reynaldo made his début at the salon of the eccentric Princess Mathilde
Mathilde Bonaparte
Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, Princesse Française , was a French princess and Salon holder. She was a daughter of Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte and his second wife, Catharina of Württemberg, daughter of King Frederick I of Württemberg.- Biography :Born in Trieste, Mathilde Bonaparte...
(Napoleon's
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
niece)., accompanying himself on the piano as he sang arias by Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
. At the age of eight, Hahn composed his first songs.
Despite the Paris Conservatoire's
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
tradition of antipathy towards child prodigies—Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
had famously been rebuffed by the school many years before—Hahn entered the school at the age of ten. His teachers included Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
, Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Émile Descombes
Émile Descombes
Émile Descombes was a French pianist and teacher.Little is known about his life, except that he is variously described as an "associate", "disciple" and possibly even one of the last pupils, of Frédéric Chopin....
. Alfred Cortot
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
and Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
were fellow students.
"Si mes vers avaient des ailes"
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Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
; it was an instant success when published by Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
. 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
Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.- Early life :Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer — a man dogged through life by misfortune...
invited Hahn into their social sphere. Hahn had "a special gift" of attracting "important people to his side".
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
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
, 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
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
, also present, wrote the following stanza:
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- Le pleur qui chante au langage
- Du poète, Reynaldo
- Hahn, tendrement le dégage
- Comme en l'allée un jet d'eau.
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Jean Santeuil
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- Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo.
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- marcel proust
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- Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo.
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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
Liane de Pougy
Liane de Pougy , was a Folies Bergères dancer renowned as one of Paris's most beautiful and notorious courtesans.- Early Life and Marriage :...
referred to Hahn in her diary as the "sweetness in [her] life." Though close friends, their relationship ended when de Pougy married. Hahn famously told her: "Goodbye Lianon. I hate married people." Perhaps most telling are personal letters Hahn wrote in which he was frequently critical of homosexuals and homosexuality.
1894 was to prove a fateful year for Hahn. At the home of artist Madeleine Lemaire
Madeleine Lemaire
Madeleine Lemaire 1845 – 1928, was a French painter specialized in elegant genre works, and flowers. Robert de Montesquiou said she was The Empress of the Roses...
, he met an aspiring writer three years older than himself. The writer was the then little-known, "highly strung and snobby" Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
. Proust and Hahn shared a love for painting, literature, and Fauré
Faure
Faure or Fauré is a French family name and may refer to:People:* Edgar Faure, French politician* Élie Faure, French art historian and essayist* Émile Alphonse Faure, lead battery pioneer* Cédric Fauré, French football striker...
. They became lovers and often travelled 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 characterised 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.
World wars and interwar activities
In 1909, Hahn became a French citizen. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for service in the French Army. He was older than the official conscription age but was accepted and served, first as a private, finally reaching the rank of corporal. While at the front he composed a song cycle based on poems by Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
.
As a conductor Hahn specialised in Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, conducting the initial performances of the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
at the invitation of Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility...
when the festival was revived after World War I. He also served in the 1920s and 1930s as general manager of the Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
Casino opera house. For many years he was the influential music critic of the leading Paris daily, Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
.
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. He died in 1947 of a brain tumor, without executing the reforms for which his supporters had hoped.
Hahn was given the score of George Bizet's
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
unperformed Symphony in C
Symphony in C (Bizet)
The Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for an 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29...
by the composer's widow. Hahn in turn deposited the score in the library of the Paris Conservatory, where it was discovered in 1933 and given its first performance in 1935.
Works
See List of compositions by Reynaldo Hahn and List of works for the stage by Hahn.Famous quotes
- "Look, the way to live is to bring all the enthusiasm you can muster to everything: studying, talking, eating, everything."- "I hate married people."
Further reading
- Marcel Proust, Lettres à Reynaldo Hahn, Paris 1956
- D. Bendahan, Reynaldo Hahn : su vida y su obra, Caracas 1973, 21979, 31992
- E. Estrada Arriens, Mis recuerdos de Reynaldo Hahn : el crepúsculo de la Belle Époque, Caracas 1974
- W. Schuh, "Zum Liedwerk Reynaldo Hahns", in Schweizer Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, Bern, Stuttgart 1974, 103-126 (= Publications de la Société suisse de musicologie, 3/2)
- Bernard Gavoty, Reynaldo Hahn : le musicien de la Belle Époque, Paris 1976, 21997
- J.-Chr. Étienne, L’Œuvre pour piano de Reynaldo Hahn, maîtrise, université de Toulouse II, 1981
- L. Gorrell, "Reynaldo Hahn : composer of song, mirror of an era", in The Music Review 46/4, 1985, 284-301
- A. Di Marco, Reynaldo Hahn musicista della Belle Époque, tesi di laurea, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 1986–1987
- G. P. Minardi, "Les bijoux poétiques du petit Bunibuls", in All’ombra delle fanciulle in fiore : la musica in Francia nell’età di Proust, Monfalcone 1987, 59-75
- D. L. Spurgeon, A study of the solo vocal works of Reynaldo Hahn with analysis of selected mélodies, DMA, University of Oklahoma, 1988
- M. Milanca Guzmán, Reynaldo Hahn caraqueño : contribución à la biografía caraqueña de Reynaldo Hahn Echenagucia, Caracas 1989 (= Biblioteca de la Academia nacional de la historia, Estudios, monografías y ensayos, 121)
- S. L. Moulton, "A musical anachronism : Reynaldo Hahn and his music", in Ars musica Denver 1/2, 1989, 1-13
- Philippe Blay, « Douze lettres de Reynaldo Hahn ». Bulletin Marcel Proust, 1993, no 43, p. 37-57.
- Philippe Blay, Hervé Lacombe. « À l'ombre de Massenet, Proust et Loti : le manuscrit autographe de L'Île du rêve de Reynaldo Hahn ». Revue de musicologie, 1993, t. 79, no 1, p. 83-108. Rééd. in Bulletin de l'Association Massenet, décembre 1996, no 4, p. 17-22.
- A. Menicacci, "Reynaldo Hahn direttore mozartiano : tre lettere inedite", in Ottocento e oltre : scritti in onore di Raoul Meloncelli, Roma 1993, 521-533 (= Itinerari musicali a cura dell’Associazione Culturale Costellazione Musica, Roma, 2)
- A. Menicacci, Reynaldo Hahn e la danza : elementi biografici e analisi dei balletti, tesi di laurea, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 1993-1994.
- S. G. Hopkins, Verlaine in song : how six composers of mélodie responded to the innovations of his verses, DMA, University of Maryland, 1996
- K. Kim, A detailed study of Reynaldo Hahn's settings of the poetry of Paul Verlaine, DMA, University of Oklahoma, 1996
- T. Hirsbrunner, "Genie und Talent : Marcel Proust und Reynaldo Hahn", in Von Richard Wagner bis Pierre Boulez : Essays, Anif, Salzburg 1997, 75-80 (= Wort und Musik, Salzburger Akademische Beiträge, 38)
- P. F. Prestwich, The Translation of memories : recollections of the young Proust, London 1999
- Philippe Blay. « Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) ». Chroniques de Santa-Candie, 1999, no 54, p. 41-47.
- Philippe Blay. L'Île du rêve de Reynaldo Hahn : contribution à l'étude de l'opéra français de l'époque fin-de-siècle. Villeneuve d'Ascq : Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2000. 3 vol. (Thèse à la carte ; 29285). 2e éd. Lille : Atelier national de reproduction des thèses, 2003. 3 vol. (Thèse à la carte ; 29285). Thèse nouveau régime, musicologie, Tours, 1999.
- Philippe Blay. « L’opéra de Loti : L’Île du rêve de Reynaldo Hahn ». « Supplément au Mariage de Loti », Bulletin de la Société des études océaniennes, avril-septembre 2000, nos 285-287, p. 40-72. Rééd. in Bulletin de l'Association Massenet, 2002, no 8, p. 25-44.
- Philippe Blay. « Hahn, Reynaldo ». In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart : allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik. Personenteil 8, Gri-Hil. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Finscher. Kassel ; Basel ; London ; New York ; Prag : Bärenreiter ; Stuttgart ; Weimar : Metzler, cop. 2002, col. 401-405.
- Philippe Blay. « Le théâtre lyrique de Pierre Loti : André Messager, Lucien Lambert, Reynaldo Hahn ». In Le livret d'opéra au temps de Massenet : actes du colloque des 9-10 novembre 2001, Festival Massenet. Sous la dir. d'Alban Ramaut et Jean-Christophe Branger. Saint-Étienne : Publications de l'université de Saint-Étienne, 2002, p. 89-113. (Centre interdisciplinaire d'études et de recherches sur l'expression contemporaine ; travaux 108, musicologie. Cahiers de l'Esplanade ; no 1). Rééd. in Lettre d'information de l'Association pour la maison de Pierre Loti, mars 2003, no 7, p. 3-20.
- Philippe Blay. « Chansons grises », « Hahn, Reynaldo », « Mélodies de Reynaldo Hahn ». In Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle. Sous la dir. de Joël-Marie Fauquet. Paris : Fayard, 2003. XVIII-1406 p.
- Philippe Blay. « Musique de Proust, musique de Hahn : l'au-delà et l'en deçà ». Bulletin Marcel Proust, 2004, no 54, p. 87-100.
- Philippe Blay. « Grand Siècle et Belle Époque : La Carmélite de Reynaldo Hahn ». In Aspects de l'opéra français de Meyerbeer à Honegger. Ouvrage coordonné par Jean-Christophe Branger et Vincent Giroud. Lyon : Symétrie, Palazzeto Bru Zane, cop. 2009, p. 153-170. (coll. « Perpetuum mobile »).