Reynaldo Hahn wasn't afraid of writing music people like. The Venezuelan who quickly became the toast of Paris' salon scene was explicit if not boastful of the fact that the imposing compositional trends of his day (1874-1947) influenced his music without determining it. He proved himself by not trying to improve on the more illustrious achievements of his fellows.
But fumes of the conservatory, not the salon, blanket the performances of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, with the Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman, in their new recording of seven songs (in new arrangements) and the Piano quintet and quartet (Chandos).
Welcome as any new recordings of Hahn's prolific output are, it's sometimes unclear why these musicians, obviously well intended and technically up to the demands of the scores, settle for these odd, drab renditions.
The "great" composers of Hahn's time, Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré (whose music he adored), were, among other things, colorists. Hahn's music does not come as a comparable investigation of the mystery of color in sound; it's colorful in the usual sense. The Kaleidoscope Collective somehow misses the vitality that must have led them to take up this enchanting music.
What's a premiere?
What's troubling, in a nagging way, is the Collective's promotion of the songs as "premiere" recordings. Yes, the piano parts have been "re-arranged" for chamber ensemble.
Of course, Hahn would have assumed that all music was to be made live by the musicians on hand. Strangely, Tom Poster, who made the arrangements, plays piano on only two of the seven songs, the best two. A player of his caliber could have leavened the proceedings, if only by restoring the piano sonorities so intrinsic to these mostly well-known songs. When absent, they're missed.
There's vitality even in Hahn's most inward songs. For pizazz in a classical form, look no farther than his bold, often thrilling, Piano Concerto. Hahn himself was a pianist of consequence, but he gave the solo part in the premiere of the concerto to legendary pianist Magda Tagliaferro.
Strings attached
The two compositions for piano and strings are the red meat on the Kaleidoscope's menu. Their performances replace spirit with a cool expertise. As with most of the fare here, they're too slow, too careful. There's a feeling of tip-toeing through carefully mapped, well-traveled terrain.
Matters brighten with Poster's every appearance, but the readings lack momentum. It doesn't help that the recorded sound is neither forward or distant but in a kind of acoustical no-man's land achievable only in the studio.
The Piano Quartet, from late in Hahn's career without being "late Hahn," captures much of the adventure in this work, as "serious" as Hahn's music gets. Still, there's a feeling that there's more pleasure to be found in the salon than here in the concert hall. Much as I appreciated these committed renditions of clearly much-loved music, I was relieved when both pieces were over.
Strange tunes
Although he composed in all the genres available to him, including opera, Hahn will remain best known for his remarkable, ever-fresh songs. Among them none is more familiar, you could even say cherished, than "A Chloris," which opens the program here.
It comes as a jolt that the song comes off tentative and bogged down by the unexpected weight of an accompanying string quartet, which in no way improves upon Hahn's original piano parts. Hahn does ask for a "very slow" tempo, but this new version of "A Chloris" sometimes feels in danger of stopping in its tracks.
Karim Sulayman, the out Lebanese-American tenor for whom these arrangements have been made, has garnered a reputation as a singer of adventurous tastes with a voice as individual as his repertory. Probably his most famous undertaking to date is singing the role of the protagonist in Garth Greenwell's "What Belongs to You" in its second life as an opera by David T. Little, critically praised but as yet unrecorded.
There are several recordings of Hahn himself singing to his own piano accompaniments, which of late have been deemed charming. But it only takes a trip to YouTube to hear a voice that most contemporary audiences would not tolerate, reedy, astringent, and interpretively over the top. But that's by our standards, where a lusher, more rounded vocal production prevails.
Sulayman's voice is a marginally more voluptuous instrument than Hahn's, or at least the one we know from historical recordings. It has a reediness and delicate vibrato that enhance the songs' innate yearning, searching quality.
The new arrangements, however, detract from rather than enhance the songs' interpretive possibilities. "La Barcheta," which brings the CD to a pleasant, upbeat close, does the most to argue for the value of additional instruments.
Reputational shifts
It speaks to Hahn's continued ascendancy in the ranks of French composers that we have gotten this far without mention of Marcel Proust. He and Hahn were lovers for two years and the closest of friends for the remainder of Proust's life.
Proust credited Hahn for initiating and then deepening his experience of music, so omnipresent in the author's magisterial "In Search of Lost Time." In what would count as a reversal of their current status, Proust called Hahn the best thing about the author himself.
Of late there's been something of a cottage industry in recordings that reflect the music Proust conjures with the sonorities and performing standards of his time and, of course, Hahn's. For all of the pleasures it does offer, this new recording hints that there may well be more fruitful ways of appreciating Hahn than arranging music he knew perfectly well how to compose. Hahn knew how to put over a song to a degree we have yet to keep up with.
Reynaldo Hahn, Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet, and songs, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Tom Poster, arranger and pianist, Karim Sulayman, tenor. Chandos Records. www.chandos.net
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