Alessandro Deljavan (piano)

First released in 2015 and unavailable for some time, this complete survey of Reynaldo Hahn's piano music includes several premiere recordings as well as a wealth of charming and unfamiliar music from the golden age of the French salon. Although he is probably best known today for a series of winning and witty songs, the dazzling variety of Hahn's output for solo piano bears the stamp of typically French qualities, as if the Venezuelan composer wanted to show that Paris was his true home. Not only do many of the pieces collected here derive their refined charm from their elegance, lightness of touch, and sensual harmony - all "French" qualities - but Hahn is still able to provide surprises in the novel forms and piquant harmonies of his most extensive collection, Le rossignol éperdu

Themes that run through this music are deft portraits of people, landscapes, and seas: a quartet of painters inspired by the poetry of Proust (1894); an 11-minute suite dedicated to moonlight (Au clair de lune); a sextet of delicious Asian and Middle Eastern evocations like a nocturne over the Bosphorus. Hahn likes to dress in neoclassical garb when it suits him, as with the eight tone paintings of Versailles and the Thème varié sur le nom de Haydn, which he was asked to write in 1910 as a tribute to Debussy and the other French greats of his day.

Alessandro Deljavan began piano lessons at the age of barely two. By the age of 16, he had already completed his piano studies at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He has performed all over the world and has achieved high placements in many competitions such as the Van Cliburn in Texas.