Reynaldo Hahn - Complete Piano Music (Alessandro Deljavan)

Information

Composer: Reynaldo Hahn

CD1

• Le rossignol éperdu, IRH 84 (beginning)

CD2

• Le rossignol éperdu, IRH 84 (end)

CD3

• L’inspiration, valse, IRH 41
• Juvenilia, IRH 43
• Les impressions
• Contour mélodique improvise
• Good-bye
• Pièces d’amour
• Notturno alla italiana
• Au clair de lune, IRH 5
• Pièce de lecture а première vue (Improvisazione)
• Portraits de peintres, pièces pour piano d’après les poèmes de Marcel Proust, IRH 71
• Chanson rêveuse de l’Héliotrope
• Valse de la libellule en deuil
• Canon dans le mode Phrygien
• Rêverie

CD4

• Premières valses, IRH 74
• La danse de dorimène
• Bacchante endormie (fragment)
• Pavane d’Angelo, pour le drame de Victor Hugo (Transcription)
• Sonatine in C Major, IRH 90:
• Thème varié sur le nom de Haydn in G Major, IRH 94
• Préface en musique pour la création du monde
• Les jeunes lauriers, marche militaire, IRH 42
• Manon, fille galante. Prélude et entr’actes (Transcription)
• 2 Etudes, IRH 31

Alessandro Deljavan, piano

Date: 2023

Label: Piano Classics

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Description

First released in 2015, unavailable now for some time, this complete survey of Reynaldo Hahn’s piano music features several first recordings as well as a feast of charming and unfamiliar music from the golden age of the French salon.

Though he is probably now best known for a stream of winning and witty songs, the shimmering diversity of Hahn’s output for solo piano bears the mark of quintessentially French qualities, as though the Venezuelan composer was seeking to demonstrate that Paris was his true home.

Many pieces here derive their refined charm not only from their elegance, their lightness of touch and sensuous harmony – all ‘French’ qualities by association – but Hahn is still capable of springing surprises throughout the novel forms and piquant harmonies of his most substantial collection, Le rossignol éperdu.

Themes running through this music are deft portraits of people, landscapes and seas: a quartet of painters inspired by the poetry of Proust (1894); from two years earlier, an 11-minute suite dedicated to moonlight (Au clair de lune); a sextet of delicious Asian and near-Eastern evocations such as a nocturne over the Bosphorus. Hahn readily adopts a neoclassical costume when it suits him, in eight tone-paintings of Versailles and the Thème varié sur le nom de Haydn which he was invited to write in 1910 as a centenary tribute alongside Debussy and the other French greats of their day.

Alessandro Deljavan began studying the piano when he was not quite two years old. By the age of 16, he had already graduated from his degree in piano from the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He has performing worldwide, and been placed highly in many competitions such as the Van Cliburn in Texas.

‘When one listens to [Deljavan], one realizes that he is a thinking artist,’ according to Fanfare magazine, reviewing his Piano Classics album of Alkan (PCL0051). This is one of several Piano Classics recordings to have won widespread critical acclaim for Deljavan’s technique, musicianship and total command of both canonic and unfamiliar works.

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Reynaldo Hahn (9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer best known for his elegant art songs. Moved to Paris as a child, he studied at the Conservatoire under Jules Massenet and later served as music critic for Le Figaro before becoming director of the Paris Opéra in 1945. Hahn composed operettas, ballets, incidental music and piano works, with Ciboulette (1923) among his most successful stage works. Inspired by literary figures such as Marcel Proust, he created music admired for its lyricism and refinement. His song Si mes vers avaient des ailes remains a concert favourite.

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Alessandro Deljavan (born 1 February 1987) is an Italian classical pianist. A prodigy, he began performing before the age of three and won numerous international competitions. He later studied at the International Piano Academy Lake Como under distinguished teachers and mentors. Deljavan has performed extensively across Europe, Asia and the Americas with leading orchestras. A prolific recording artist with more than 80 albums, he has received critical acclaim for his interpretations of composers such as Chopin, Scriabin, and C. P. E. Bach. He is currently Professor of Piano at the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence.

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