Reynaldo Hahn - Divertissement pour une fête de nuit

Reynaldo Hahn
Background information
Born	(1874-08-09)August 9, 1874 Caracas, Venezuela
Died	January 28, 1947(1947-01-28) (aged 72) Paris, France

August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie.

Divertissement pour une fête de nuit

2. Haydn chez le Prince Esterhazy
3. Adieu pour toujours
4. Le Jugement de Paris
5. Canzone (sur le lac)
6. Valse dans les jardins

Ensemble Initium
Orchestre des Pays de Savoie
Nicolas Chalvin, conductor

Hahn went to Paris as a child and later studied at the Conservatoire under Jules Massenet. He was music critic of Le Figaro from 1934 and in 1945 became director of the Paris Opéra. His operettas, which were developments of the style established by Jacques Offenbach, include L’Île du rêve (1898) and Ciboulette (1923). He also wrote incidental music for plays by Edmond Rostand, Sacha Guitry, and others, as well as ballets, notably La Fête chez Thérèse (1910) and Le Dieu bleu (1912). His piano suite Portraits de peintres was inspired by poems of Marcel Proust, who portrayed Hahn in his novel Jean Santeuil. Several of his exquisite art songs, such as “Si mes vers avaient des ailes” (“If my verse had wings”), remain in the concert repertory. Hahn’s music is melodious and graceful. His memoirs are valuable sources for the musical and literary life of the time.