Reynaldo Hahn

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Reynaldo Hahn (born August 9, 1874 in Caracas, Venezuela, died January 28, 1947 in Paris, France) was a naturalised French composer, conductor and music critic. His father was a banker of German-Jewish extraction. His mother, née de Echenagucia, was a Venezuelan of Spanish origin. Taken to Paris at the age of three, Reynaldo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Massenet. He also studied with Gounod and Saint-Saëns.

Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical song tradition of the mélodie, with a fin de siècle flavour, including the precocious Si mes vers avaient des ailes (published when he was 13!), A Chloris, a delicious homage to Bach and a powerful setting of Victor Hugo's Quand la nuit n'est pas étoilée. Reynaldo's settings of Verlaine poems, evocative and economic, are perfect realisations of the poet's unique tone and mood. He also wrote operettas, chamber music and orchestral compositions.

As a conductor he specialised in Mozart, having conducted the initial performances at the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Lilly Lehmann. He also served, in the 20s and 30s, as general manager of the Cannes Casino opera house. For many years he was the influential music critic of the leading Paris daily, Le Figaro.

Hahn had homosexual relationships with Marcel Proust and possibly Saint-Saëns, although in his correspondence he was frequently critical of homosexuality.<ref>Carter, William C. Marcel Proust. Yale University Press (2000) p. 167.</ref>

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