Reynaldo Hahn (1874 – 1947) was a Venezuelan-born
French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer.
He is best known for his songs – mélodies – of
which he wrote more than 100. He was born in Caracas
but his family moved to Paris when he was a child, and
he lived most of his life there. Following the success
of his song "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my
verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he
became a prominent member of fin de siècle French
society. Among his closest...(+)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874 – 1947) was a Venezuelan-born
French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer.
He is best known for his songs – mélodies – of
which he wrote more than 100. He was born in Caracas
but his family moved to Paris when he was a child, and
he lived most of his life there. Following the success
of his song "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my
verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he
became a prominent member of fin de siècle French
society. Among his closest friends were Sarah Bernhardt
and Marcel Proust. After the First World War, in which
he served in the army, Hahn adapted to new musical and
theatrical trends and enjoyed successes with his first
opérette, Ciboulette (1923) and a collaboration with
Sacha Guitry, the musical comedy Mozart (1926). During
the Second World War Hahn, who was of Jewish descent,
took refuge in Monaco, returning to Paris in 1945 where
he was appointed director of the Opéra. He died in
Paris in 1947, aged 72.
Hahn was a prolific composer. His vocal works include
secular and sacred pieces, lyric scenes, cantatas,
oratorios, operas, comic operas, and operettas.
Orchestral works include concertos ballets, tone poems,
incidental music for plays and films. He wrote a range
of chamber music, and piano works. He sang as well as
played his own songs, and made recordings as a soloist
and accompanying other performers. After his death his
music was neglected but from the late 20th century
onward increasing interest has led to frequent
performances of many of his works and recordings of all
his songs and piano work, much of his orchestral music
and some of his stage works.
Hahn is best known for his songs. He wrote just over
100; most were composed in the thirty-year period from
1888 to the end of the First World War, after which the
demand for songs with piano accompaniment diminished
and he turned to other forms. His style, in his early
songs, reflects the influence of Massenet, but he
regarded Gabriel Fauré as the supreme master of the
mélodie, and favoured some of Fauré's chosen poets,
including Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier and Paul
Verlaine. He was only thirteen when he wrote the Hugo
setting "Si mes vers avaient des ailes", later included
in his first collection of 20 Mélodies (1895).
His first published set of songs was Chansons grises
(Songs in Grey, 1890), which included a setting of
Verlaine's "La bonne chanson" that the poet preferred
to Fauré's well known version of it The commentator
James Day observes that the songs in the set display "a
maturity quite remarkable in a sixteen-year-old – and
an empathy with the poet quite unexpected in a musician
of any age".
After Chansons grises Hahn composed further song cycles
over the next 25 years. Rondels (1898–99), with words
by Charles d'Orléans, Théodore de Banville and
Catulle Mendès, was an example of the composer's
fascination with the past, setting original and modern
versions of the old rondel verse form In Études
latines (1900) Hahn set ten verses by Leconte de Lisle,
evoking Graeco-Roman antiquity. In three of the songs
the soloist and pianist are joined by a chorus. Hahn
again experimented with combinations of voices in
Venezia (1901), a set of six lyrics in Venetian
dialect, in which the final song is a duet for tenor
and soprano with chorus. For Les feuilles blessés (The
Injured Leaves, 1901–1906) Hahn turned to a
contemporary poet, Jean Moréas, known for his
symbolist verse. In 1907 Hahn returned to older forms
with Chansons et madrigaux, setting words by
d'Orléans, Jean-Antoine de Baïf and others, in a
cycle of six songs for four voices. Love Without Wings
(1911) is a set of three verses in English by Mary
Robinson, and Hahn again set English texts in Five
Little Songs (1915), with verses by Robert Louis
Stevenson. Grove lists a final cycle, Chansons
espagnoles (1947).
In addition to the song cycles, two collections of
Hahn's mélodies, comprising twenty songs each, were
published during his lifetime. Both sets include some
songs previously published individually, and there were
twelve other songs not part of a cycle or included in a
published collection.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynaldo_Hahn).
Although originally written for Voics (S) and Piano, I
created this Transcription of "À Chloris" (Greenish)
in E Major for Flute & Piano.
, 26 Feb 2022 at 17:34 
SHEET MUSIC