Reynaldo Hahn: Concerto pour Violon et Orchestre (1928)
Reynaldo Hahn
born 9 August 1874 in Caracas (Venezuela)
died 28 Jan. 1947 in Paris
First performance:
26 Feb. 1928 by Gabriel Bouillon
CD-Recordings:
Henryk Szeryng 1987 (live, American Premiere)
Denis Clavier 1997
One could call Reynaldo Hahn's Violin Concerto a concerto of the light muse. Is that the reason why it is largely unknown and hardly performed today? Is this the reason why it is largely unknown and rarely performed today? Another reason is more likely: this is what the LA Times wrote on 19 November 1987 on the occasion of the American premiere of the Concerto by Henryk Szering: "It wasn't bad reviews, but bad housekeeping that kept Reynaldo Hahn's Violin Concerto from public performance for the last 60 years. That will change tonight when Henryk Szeryng, the Polish-born violinist from Mexico who discovered the long-lost score in a musty old Venezuelan library, performs the work with the Atlanta Symphony. The concerto was performed publicly once--in Paris in 1928--before the score disappeared, only to resurface after Hahn died in 1947. Misplaced again, the score was rediscovered by the 69-year-old Szeryng in December, 1984, but illness kept him from performing the piece until now." (Cf.: IMSLP, Petrucci Music Library)
Reynaldo Hahn was the director of the Paris Opera after the Second World War, but he became famous before the war with French operettas. One was called Ciboulette, written in 1923, another
Mozart (1925). Reynaldo Hahn an operetta composer? Reynaldo Hahn was more than a person interested in literature, he was a lifelong friend of Marcel Proust, at times even his lover. He composed
songs to many poems of the time. A composer-personality, then, who is not to be underestimated. Nevertheless, I stick to the characterisation of his violin concerto: it is a concerto of the light
muse. And that is not meant disparagingly.
A reviewer of the live CD recording of this concerto and two other works by Hahn wrote very insightfully: "How pleasant it is to hear three sunny melodic works, so full of warmth and
nostalgia with a minimum of angst-ladenness. It is truly amazing how these works escaped the recording studios for so long...Only in recent years has the musical establishment turned away from
atonality and admitted a (secret?) fondness for such unashamedly romantic, even sentimental works as these gems." (on the homepage of musicweb-international.com).
Listen here!
Listening guide to go with it:
I Décidé
A run of ascending septuplets over several octaves opens the piece, and it's curtains! And then an unusual rhythmic melody appears in the orchestra, which is taken over a little later by the violin and transformed into swaying movement. Lightness is the order of the day. Once again, the orchestra insists on its rhythm. Then, however, the violin falls for a flatteringly sweet second theme, which spreads out swaying until the faltering, limping rhythm interferes again. But the art nouveau-decorative-sweet theme sings on, the rhythm recedes into the background. There is room for a new vocal theme of the violin ("un peu moins vite"), the actual secondary theme, which soon enters into an exchange with the orchestra, the swaying motives reappear until a strict rhythm leads back to the limping orchestral theme. Then, however, it is up to the violin to take the lead with various figurations; after all, we are in the middle of the free development of a violin concerto. But the longing for the beautiful melting cradle remains, can be heard again and again. But then the recapitulation: the strikingly rhythmic orchestral theme sparkles again in between, is complemented by the swaying-sweet theme and the vocal secondary theme. Then, however, it moves ever more agitatedly towards the end, joyful in the lightness of lived happiness. A sparkling gem of a movement.
II Chant d’amour. Souvenir de Tunis
The title of the movement says it all. The sparkle of the gemstone is now followed in the orchestra by a quiet love melody, a horn repeats it in solitude, a unique idea that is taken over by the violin in love, beautifully orchestrated calm, chromatic sweetness and, in the rest of the score, the words "Tranquille", "Très Calme", "Amoroso", "Sans rigueur", "en animant", "Très calme", one after the other, a deeply felt song that is probably biographically connected with not only musical memories of Tunis. Souvenir de Tunis is the subtitle added to the movement by the composer. The question of the informed listener, may one still compose like this in the 20th century, disappears, so beautiful.
III. Lent – Vif et léger
The curtain rises for the third time, very quietly, lentement, a lyrical motif in the violin is repeated several times, meditated on, as it were. A flute answers almost out of nowhere. The violin
continues to sing musingly...
... and decides in favour of life and joy. It begins vividly, in a cheerful D major, a kind of rondo, and nothing wants to slow down the propulsive drive, not even the intermediate motifs and
melodies of the orchestra, it continues unabated. Festively, orchestra and violin hurry towards a cheerful, light and witty ending. A violin concerto, happily kissed by the light muse.