SOUL-STIRRING
What’s the soundtrack to your soul?
The music of Reynaldo Hahn, la musique de la Belle Époque
Published in
3 min readJan 14, 2022
How have I missed out on Reynaldo Hahn’s music all my life? Honeyed melodies, arpeggiated and airy accompaniment, lilting leaps!
La Belle Époque
Composing in the era known as the Belle Époque (the Age of Beauty)—the late 1800-early 1900s before the First World War — Hahn worked among other notable French artists, such as Henri Matisse and Paul Gaugin, poets and novelists Charles Baudelaire and Marcel Proust, and composers Claude Debussy and Erik Satie. This was the age of l’art nouveau…of art everywhere even in neighborhood cafés, in stately salons, on advertising kiosks and on metro walls.
L’Heure Exquise
Though pretty as can be, Hahn’s music isn’t just fluff. Take, for instance, his…
