Ensemble Initium & Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, Nicolas Chalvin
Reynaldo Hahn is not just the composer of little salon pieces for piano or voice. Having made a big return with his great keyboard cycles (Le Rossignol éperdu) and his operas (Le Marchand de Venise), here he is again with a disc for ensemble music, chamber orchestra even (Concerto provençal).

The disc as a whole could well be called ‘For a summer’s evening in the Midi’, for the music positively exudes the sultriness of an evening beneath the pine trees or in the olive groves, where Venetian masks come and dance by the light of the Chinese lanterns.

If Le Bal de Béatrice d’Este has been honoured on disc (notably in a recording conducted by the composer), the Concerto provençal (4 woodwind soloists and string orchestra) was but a fleeting memory on account of some pretty rough 78s. So this now is in effect a major rediscovery!

The Divertissement pour une fête de nuit, with its pastiches, notably of waltzes, is a fantastic world premiere recording. As for the Sérénade – for wind quartet – this now also receives its world premiere, played from the manuscript of the score kindly made available to us.

This project, focussed mainly on wind instruments, has been made possible only by bringing together two ensembles attached to Timpani that have received particular praise from the press: Initium (4 CDs: Caplet, Ibert, Onslow, Koechlin) and the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie (CD Le Flem), conducted by the excellent Nicolas Chalvin to whom we are grateful for discs of music by Pierné, Saint-Saëns and Le Flem.