In Search of Lost Time in Word and Sound: about the Influence of Marcel Proust on the Work of Reynaldo Hahn

Abstract

In the late 19th century two young and original artists — Marcel Proust, who worked not only as a writer, but also as a journalist (a music critic, as well), and Reynaldo Hahn, a composer, music critic and public figure, — fall into the orbit of mutual influences. Having remained friends (which can be seen, in particular, from their correspondence) up until Proust’s death, they have maintained their artistic dialogue in one way or another. As a result of this, a number of Hahn’s compositions dedicated to Proust appear at that time, as well as the cycle Portraits d’artistes – four piano pieces by Hahn with declamation of texts from Proust’s early cycle with the same title. The composition presents a peculiar double ekphrasis, since it portrays four baroque artists (Albert Cuyp, Paulus Potter, Anthony van Dyck and Antoine Watteau), using poetic and musical means, generating synthetic images-metaphors. Hahn’s other compositions permeated with Proust’s aesthetics is his piano cycle Le Rossignol éperdu, the pieces of which were composed at the same time as the first volume of In Search of Lost Time was written. Unifying into a certain resemblance to a cycle, Hahn’s pieces are in effect miniature sketches of images that are different in their nature (poetic, pictorial, architectural, natural, mythological, etc.), affixed with epigraphs and other verbal commentaries. The composition demonstrates the stylistic features essential to the French Belle Époque: passéisme, ornamentality, impressionistic hearing of sound-color, as well as a special attitude towards time. In the outcome, this results in a compilation-cycle continuing the romantic tradition of the traveler’s album (Franz Liszt), turning out to be concordant with compositions of Hahn’s contemporaries (in particular, Debussy’s Preludes) and, in addition, presenting an original musical metaphor of Proust’s novel.