Hide player

Hyperion Records

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDH55040
Like every other French song composer of the time, Reynaldo was drawn to the poetry of Victor Hugo who relished the use of the most epic canvases both in his poetry and his novels. Like Goethe, Hugo was capable of small and unpretentious lyrics of the greatest tenderness, and his importance in the development of the mélodie cannot be over-estimated. Although Hahn placed Si mes vers avaient des ailes as the second item in his first recueil, it has become his motto song. The youthfulness of the composer (he was thirteen) makes its perfection seem all the more extraordinary. The distinguishing marks of Hahn’s style are all there: an accompaniment which undulates in the background like the slow unfurling of a skein of sumptuous material, a background of seemingly little import which nevertheless shapes the melody as if the accompanist wielded the lightest of hands on a potter’s wheel; a vocal line which is derived from the intimacy of speech but which contains in it the seeds of a wonderful melody truly to be sung; the use of unexpected intervals and cadences (the leaps are sometimes large) which transport us suddenly from a conversational tone in the middle of the stave to the swoon-inducing delight of a cunningly placed mezza voce. Right from the beginning Hahn was writing for singers who could cast sensual spells. Although the composer’s debts to Massenet are obvious, this music has a depth of feeling which that composer was seldom to attain in his songs.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1996

Recording details: December 1981
Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Andrew Keener
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: May 1988
Total duration: 2 minutes 11 seconds

Si mes vers avaient des ailes
First line:
Mes vers fuiraient, doux et frêles
composer
1888; dedicated to the composer's sister Maria
author of text

Other recordings available for download
Felicity Lott (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

Other albums featuring this work
'Hahn: Songs' (CDA67141/2)
'The Essential Hyperion 2' (HYP20)
The Essential Hyperion 2
This album is not yet available for download HYP20  2CDs Super-budget price sampler — 2CDs Deleted  
Show: MP3 FLAC ALAC
   English   Français   Deutsch
over £20 for 10% discount on whole order
over £40 for 15% discount on whole order
over £59 for 25% discount on whole order
over £200 for 35% discount on whole order
(P&P free on almost all orders.)
Your basket:
There are no items in your basket.
Use the Buy buttons across the site.

The following discounts will be applied for CD purchases:
ms'); ' %>