Reynaldo Hahn
| Reynaldo Hahn | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Born |
August 9, 1874 Caracas, Venezuela |
| Died | January 28, 1947 (aged 72) Paris, France |
Reynaldo Hahn (French: [ʁɛ.nal.do an]; August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie.
Reynaldo Hahn was born in Caracas, Venezuela, the youngest of twelve children. Reynaldo's father Carlos was an affluent engineer, inventor, and businessman of German-Jewish extraction; his mother, Elena María de Echenagucia, was a Venezuelan of Spanish, (Basque) origin, and like most wealthy families in that country, descended from Spanish colonists. His father knew the Venezuelan President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, but the increasingly volatile political atmosphere at the end of his first term caused his father to retire and leave Venezuela.
Hahn's family moved to Paris when he was three years old. Although he showed interest in his native music of Caracas in his youth, France would "determine and define Hahn's musical identity in later life". The city and its cultural resources: the Paris Opéra, the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Opéra-Comique, in addition to the nexus of artists and writers, proved an ideal setting for the precocious Hahn.
A child prodigy, Reynaldo made his début at the salon of the eccentric Princess Mathilde (Napoleon's niece), accompanying himself on the piano as he sang arias by Jacques Offenbach. At the age of eight, Hahn composed his first songs.
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