Reynaldo Hahn - World Wars and Interwar Activities

World Wars and Interwar Activities

In 1909, Hahn became a French citizen. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for service in the French Army. He was older than the official conscription age but was accepted and served, first as a private, finally reaching the rank of corporal. While at the front he composed a song cycle based on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.

As a conductor Hahn specialised in Mozart, conducting the initial performances of the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Lilli Lehmann when the festival was revived after World War I. He also served in the 1920s and 1930s as general manager of the Cannes Casino opera house. For many years he was the influential music critic of the leading Paris daily, Le Figaro.

Forced to leave Paris in 1940 during the Nazi occupation, he returned at the end of the war in 1945 to fulfill his appointment as director of the Paris Opéra. He died in 1947 of a brain tumor, without executing the reforms for which his supporters had hoped.

Hahn was given the score of George Bizet's unperformed Symphony in C by the composer's widow. Hahn in turn deposited the score in the library of the Paris Conservatory, where it was discovered in 1933 and given its first performance in 1935.