Hahn, Reynaldo

comprising a draft of the opening scene for Mahénu (soprano), "O pays de Bora Bora", the short score notated in pencil on two four-stave systems per page, an early version, with many differences from the published score, with deletions, alterations and corrections, nineteen bars in all, written on rectos only, unsigned; together with on the versos, part of the autograph manuscript of "L'amour d'une femme", Hahn's orchestral arrangement of Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, written in brown ink, indicating flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns (possibly strings), and including music for four horns

5 pages in all, oblong 8vo (c.18 x 27cm), 12-stave paper, [Paris], c.1895-1897, also including a printed vocal score of this music, some browning and staining, small tears to margins

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Working manuscripts by Hahn are rarely offered for sale at auction.  Hahn's "idyll polynésienne" in three acts, L'île du rêve was composed to  a libretto closely modelled (like Delibe's Lakmé) on Pierre Loti's experiences in Tahiti, which he had published in Le marriage de Loti (1880).  The story revolves around the Tahitian girl Mahénu, who falls in love with Loti, a French officer, but who is courted by an elderly Chinese man. In this opening scene, Mahénu resigns herself to her fate, punctuated by interventions from the chorus (her father and friends).  Hahn's evocative score, with its fluid "Tahitian" harmonies and gentle "dreamy" tempi, was performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 23 March 1898. 

Hahn's early draft differs from the final operatic version, including significant divergences from the libretto.  The characters are not named in this manuscript, but the heroine exclaims "Pauvre Mahénu", a phrase that does not appear in the libretto.  Indeed the second part of Hahn's melody, retained in the opera, is here used to a different text ("Mon Coeur mes yeux mourants"), from the final version ("C'est toi que je revois").  Hahn dedicated the published score (1897) of L'île du rêve to his teacher Jules Massenet.

The fragments of Hahn's work on Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben are most intriguing.  Hahn has here written parts for four horns for bar 6 of the fifth song ('Helft mir, Ihr Schwestern'); the harmonic motif recurs throughout Schumann's song.   Schumann was one of Hahn's favourite composers and strongly influenced the piano-writing in his songs.