Early years Hahn was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 9 August 1874, the youngest child of Carlos (
né Karl) Hahn (1822–1897) and his wife Elena María
née de Echenagucia (1831–1912). When his friend and associate
Antonio Guzmán Blanco became president of the country in 1876, Carlos became Blanco's financial adviser. He was brought up speaking fluent German, Spanish and (having a British
nanny) English. When Blanco's first term of office came to an end in 1877, the Hahn family left Venezuela and settled in Paris, where they had relations and well-connected friends. Among the family's Parisian friends was
Princess Mathilde, niece of
Napoleon I; the young Hahn sang for her, and made his public debut at the age of six, at a musical soirée in her drawing room. He began composition lessons with an Italian teacher when he was eight. He went on to study piano with
Émile Decombes (in the same class as
Maurice Ravel and
Alfred Cortot), harmony with
Albert Lavignac and
Théodore Dubois, and composition with
Charles Gounod and
Jules Massenet. As a young man Massenet had won France's top musical scholarship, the
Prix de Rome, but Hahn could not emulate him: only French nationals were eligible, and the Hahns had not taken French citizenship. Besides, Massenet counselled, with rich parents Hahn did not need the scholarship as his less affluent colleagues did. Through Massenet, Hahn met
Camille Saint-Saëns, with whom he studied privately in addition to his Conservatoire lessons. While still a student Hahn had an early success with his
mélodie "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my verses had wings) to a poem by
Victor Hugo. The song was among a set of Hahn's mélodies published by the leading music publisher
Hartmann et Cie in 1890.
Le Figaro took it up – "We feel we must reproduce this graceful piece which obviously denotes a delicate and original musician" – and devoted half a
broadsheet page to printing the words and music. Hahn dedicated "
Si mes vers avaient des ailes" to his sister Maria, who had married the painter
Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta. At their house Hahn met many of the leading figures in the arts, including
Alphonse Daudet, for whose play ''L'obstacle'' the teenaged Hahn composed
incidental music. The play was presented at the
Théâtre du Gymnase in December 1890. Daudet called Hahn's music his "chère musique preferée". At the Daudets' house in 1893 the singer
Sybil Sanderson premiered Hahn's
Chansons grises, settings of poems by
Paul Verlaine. The poet was present and was moved to tears by Hahn's settings of his verse.
Stéphane Mallarmé was also present, and wrote: Le pleur qui chante au langage Du poète, Reynaldo Hahn tendrement le dégage Comme en l'allée un jet d'eau. The weeping that sings in the words Of the poet, Reynaldo Hahn tenderly releases it Like a fountain on the pathway. , Hahn's lover and later lifelong friend In the early 1890s Hahn worked on his first opera ''
L'île du rêve'', "a Polynesian idyll", written at Massenet's behest. During this period he met
Marcel Proust for the first time, at
Madeleine Lemaire's salon on 22 May 1894. As far as is known, the 19-year-old Hahn's romantic attachments before then had been intimate but platonic relationships with the famous Parisienne beauties
Cléo de Mérode and
Liane de Pougy. Until this point, he had been uneasy to the point of hostility about homosexuality and homosexuals, but the two men quickly began an intense love affair, Proust's only real liaison. Proust wrote, "Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo." The music scholar
James Harding writes about the fictional
Vinteuil Sonata: "It was Hahn who suggested to Proust the famous
petite phrase which recurs symbolically throughout
À la recherche du temps perdu and which is none other than a haunting theme from Saint-Saëns's
D minor violin sonata". Hahn completed his studies at the Conservatoire satisfactorily but "without producing sparks in examinations and competitions", as his biographer Jacques Depaulis puts it. and Hahn left at the same time as his mentor.
1896 to 1913 In 1896 Proust wrote the words and Hahn the music for
Portraits de peintres for reciter and piano, premiered at the house of Madeleine Lemaire, where they had met. Later in that year Hahn formed another of his closest friendships: he had long admired the actress
Sarah Bernhardt, and at the end of 1896 he met her and quickly became part of her inner circle of friends and helpers. He frequently visited her in her dressing room during and after performances, lunched with her at her Paris townhouse, travelled with her to London and on tour, and composed music for her productions. ''L'île du rêve'' was premiered in 1898, when thanks to Massenet's influence the
Opéra-Comique staged the piece, with a fine cast, conducted by
André Messager. The press notices were hostile, While it was in rehearsal Paris was agog at the
Zola trial in the continuing
Dreyfus affair. The affair sharply divided French opinion; Hahn, like Proust and Bernhardt, was in the Dreyfusard camp. The anti-Semitic overtones of the anti-Dreyfusard campaign disturbed him deeply, but his devotion to France was unshaken. In December 1902 Hahn's second opera,
La Carmélite, described as "a musical comedy", with a libretto by
Catulle Mendès, was premiered at the Opéra-Comique.
Emma Calvé played the main role of
Louise de La Vallière, Messager was once again the conductor, and the piece was lavishly mounted, that scene won critical praise as "inspired", whereas the rest of the score was thought to be skilful, pretty and spirited but lacking in character. Following this disappointment, Hahn turned his attention away from opera. In 1905 he composed one of his most popular works, the suite for chamber ensemble ''
Le Bal de Béatrice d'Este; in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', Patrick O'Connor observes that this work, "conceived merely as a
divertissement", has remained one of the composer's best-known and most frequently performed. In 1906 he and
Gustav Mahler were the conductors for the two operas given at the
Salzburg Festival, celebrating Mozart's 150th anniversary. Mahler conducted
The Marriage of Figaro; Hahn conducted
Don Giovanni with the
Vienna Philharmonic and a cast including
Lilli Lehmann and
Geraldine Farrar. In December 1907 Hahn became a naturalised French citizen. In that year he composed his set of six
Songs and Madrigals, setting words by medieval and
Renaissance French poets in which he incorporated music in the style of
Antoine Boësset, court composer to
Louis XIII.
1914 to 1929 At the outbreak of war in 1914 Hahn, who was over the official age limit for conscription, volunteered for the army as a private. For his wartime services he was awarded the
Croix de guerre and appointed to the
Legion of Honour. When Hahn returned to civilian life, Cortot, director of the newly founded
École Normale de Musique de Paris, appointed him professor of interpretation and singing. Hahn was known for the high standards he expected of singers, and published articles and a book,
Du chant (1921), on interpretation and singing technique. In 1919 he met the tenor , with whom he began a lifelong and happy personal partnership. '', 1923|alt=large stage with large cast in mid-19th century costume in an ensemble number, with the market of Les Halles behind them In 1921 Hahn was invited by an old friend, the playwright
Robert de Flers, to compose the music for an
operetta for which Flers and his collaborator
Francis de Croisset had written the libretto. Hahn had reservations: the piece was set in the market of
Les Halles, which was the setting for
Charles Lecocq's
opéra comique La fille de Madame Angot, written fifty years earlier but still immensely popular. Furthermore, the heroine was called Ciboulette, meaning "
chives", which Hahn thought unromantic, and the most interesting character was neither the heroine nor the hero, but their mentor, "a sort of elderly Rodolfo out of
La bohème". Nonetheless, Hahn accepted the invitation. Between the start of work on
Ciboulette and its premiere, Hahn lost his two closest friends. Proust died in November 1922 and Bernhardt the following March. He pressed on with work, and in April 1923
Ciboulette opened at the
Théâtre des Variétés. It was well reviewed and was an enormous box office success. and has remained in the repertoire in France, with 21st-century revivals at the Opéra-Comique and elsewhere. '', 1925:
Sacha Guitry and
Yvonne Printemps|alt=man and woman, the latter in male clothing, dressed in 18th-century costume In 1924 Hahn was promoted to officer in the Legion of Honour. The show was a popular success in Paris, with, for the time, an excellent run of seven months. The Guitrys then took the production to London in 1926, where it was well received. At the end of that year there were two versions running on
Broadway: the Guitry company played the French original for a limited season, and an English translation ran at another theatre, starring
Frank Cellier and
Irene Bordoni.
1930 to 1947 In 1930 Hahn composed a piano concerto, premiered in February 1931 with its dedicatee,
Magda Tagliaferro, as soloist and the composer conducting; according to
Grove it became Hahn's best-known concert work. In 1931 Hahn wrote the music for the opérette
Brummell. Hahn's only major commission for the
Paris Opéra was the work based on
The Merchant of Venice that he had begun composing during the war.
Le marchand de Venise, with a verse libretto by
Miguel Zamacoïs, premiered in March 1935. It was received with enthusiasm, and although it was not revived in Paris during Hahn's lifetime it had several new productions later. Hahn composed the music for two other musical comedies during the 1930s as well as a considerable quantity of incidental music for plays and films. In the second half of the decade Hahn was again prominent as a conductor, directing performances of
The Magic Flute,
The Seraglio and
The Marriage of Figaro. His fidelity to Mozart was remarked on in the press: after years of productions at the Opéra-Comique in which the composer's
recitatives in
Figaro were replaced by spoken dialogue, Hahn used a new, more scholarly text edited by
Adolphe Boschot. In the concert hall he formed musical partnerships with younger performers; in addition to Tagliafero, he regularly accompanied Ferrant and the soprano
Ninon Vallin. When the Germans occupied Paris in 1940, Hahn left for the south of France and then for neutral Monaco. He was less at risk there from
Nazi anti-Semitic persecution, but narrowly avoided being killed by the explosion of a stray shell from a British submarine aimed at a German warship moored near his rooms on the seafront at Monte Carlo. He returned to Paris in February 1945, and was elected to the
Institut de France's
Académie des Beaux-Arts, and appointed director of the Paris Opéra. His last concert work, the
Concerto provençal, was premiered in a broadcast by
Radiodiffusion Française on 30 July 1945 and given in concert the following April. In 1946, together with Tagliafero and Vallin, Hahn made a concert tour, performing in London,
Geneva, Brussels,
Marseille and
Toulon. He was taken ill and an operation was performed to treat a brain tumour, which his doctors believed might have been caused by the explosion in Monte Carlo. He was buried in
Père Lachaise Cemetery, near the grave of Proust. ==Works==