Exceptional singer Reynaldo Hahn (1875-1947) owes his early successes to the 'songs for voice and piano' genre, whose raison d'être he defines in his journal as follows: 'To highlight a poem, word for word but without uniformity -to emphasize its meaning without distorting it - to shine light upon one idea, obscure another and present it all in vocal, sung form - to produce a sharp, precise sensation by touching a heartstring or evoking an image - all in awell-structured and tastefully written p...