Reynaldo hahn biography

Reynaldo Hahn (August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947) was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty,^[1] and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque.

Child prodigy

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. The increasingly volatile political atmosphere in South America during the 1870s 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 mu