Hahn: Piano Music - Poèmes & Valses

This delectable album should introduce many listeners to the evocative piano music of Reynaldo Hahn. Pavel Kolesnikov offers a carefully ordered selection, with 19 numbers from 1912’s Le rossignol éperdu and six of the “Premières valses” (1898). Hahn’s music owes much to Fauré, with hints of Mompou in its flirtations with silence. It all suits Kolesnikov’s poetic sensibilities perfectly. Microphones are placed very close, shining a light on his extraordinary range of colour at the quietest moments. The results are beguiling, highly perfumed and endlessly subtle, ideal for private listening.