Those of us who rejoice in the crystalline beauty of Carolyn Sampson’s interpretations of Bach, Handel and Purcell will welcome this bouquet of songs on a floral theme, her debut recital disc. It’s been a long wait, but our patience is repaid handsomely. With pianist Joseph Middleton she savours some choice blooms from, among others, Britten, Chabrier, Schubert, Schumann, Gounod and Strauss, her glorious soprano particularly affecting in Fauré’s Le papillon et la fleur and the wonderfully perfumed Les roses d’Ispahan. Middleton plays with dextrous delicacy throughout and brings real virtuosity to Strauss’s Mädchenblumen. Highly recommended.

The nuanced titles - miniature works of art in themselves - merely hint at the delights to come in Pavel Kolesnikovs sensitive realization of Hahns rened sound-world.

The Romantic Piano Concerto Series goes French for this recording of the single examples in the genre by Massenet and his pupil Hahn. Both works were written towards the end of their composers' careers and mark a return to the piano for each of them; the piano had originally been the first instrument of both, but opera and the voice had occupied them for most of their lives.

" […] my own beguilement with Szeryng came with his performance in 1987 Atlanta with Louis Lane, of the North American premiere of the 1927 Concerto by Reynaldo Hahn, the French master of the Belle Epoch.

It is a sad fact that the reputation and fame of many composers, built up over a lifetime, evaporates on their death bed. Si mes vers avaient des ailes, a short song written when the composer was just thirteen, is the work on which Hahn’s posthumous fame had, until relatively recently, relied, and is included here in the composer's own transcription for cello and piano. Recording catalogues now reveal an ever-growing list of works—concertos, symphonic offerings, songs, piano pieces and chamber music—by this most urbane and charming composer. The C major Violin Sonata of 1926 assuredly leads us into the world of Fauré fifty years earlier, its easy lyricism and textural transparency bearing a kinship with the elder French musician’s A major Sonata. This melodic suppleness is continued in Soliloque et Forlane, now with viola and piano demonstrating Hahn’s skill in turning out a jaunty tune. The Nocturne and the Romance, both for violin and piano, reveal further an ability to combine passionate intensity with a sense of refined melodic and harmonic delicacy. The Piano Quartet of 1946 adopts a more muscular and impassioned character. Melodic charm and restfulness in the Andante are interrupted by the central passage which sails into troubled and expressive waters and the finale rolls gracefully to its compelling conclusion. This charming recording is the perfect showcase for Room-Music, a consortium of internationally acclaimed musicians who wish to perform and explore chamber music in a more flexible and innovative form.

Shani Diluka releases a great project dedicated to Marcel Proust and composers he loved, to celebrate the 150-year anniversary of his birth in 2021 and the 100-year anniversary of his death in 2022. It features Reynaldo Hahn's rarely played Piano Concerto and works by Fauré, Gluck, Massenet, R. Strauss, and Debussy. The album is recorded with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris conducted by Hervé Niquet. The Proust album features Pierre Fouchenneret (violin), Natalie Dessay (soprano), and Guillaume Gallienne (narrator, from the Comédie Francaise).

Leave the "Anthropocene" theme aside for a moment and revel in Renée Fleming's voice on this album, released in 2021 when the singer was in her early 60s. The instrument is in fine shape, and Fleming's decision to forgo operatic performances in favor of art song is looking better and better. The top notes don't have the force of a 30-year-old's but have a rather eerie precision. Perhaps there's a bit of strain in the register just below the top, but the burnished quality of her low notes is absolutely gorgeous and more than compensates. As for the music, the new term "Anthropocene" denotes the current epoch in which the effect of human activities on the climate is fundamental.

The pairing of Francis Poulenc and Reynaldo Hahn on this album may seem contrived merely because of biographical parallels between the two men, for their musical approaches and styles are quite different, if not at odds. Poulenc's neo-Classical, self-conscious parodies in the Sinfonietta and the dry, sarcastic wit of the Aubade are a world away from Hahn's pretty, even precious, Romanticism, which is unabashedly on display in La bal de Béatrice d'Este. However, the discerning listener may find in Poulenc streaks of Hahn's pensiveness and languor, which his comic antics never completely conceal; there is in Hahn a buoyant, diatonic tunefulness that is readily found in Poulenc. (Interestingly, some of Poulenc's adaptations of Renaissance music bear a remarkable similarity to Hahn's antique pastiches in this ballet.) Furthermore, their fondness for unusual chamber combinations is striking, and the transition from the Aubade to La bal de Béatrice d'Este is not at all jarring because they both share the charm and ambience of the salon orchestra.