The music of Reynaldo Hahn is well known to song enthusiasts – who doesn’t adore the delectable ‘À Chloris?’ – but his chamber music is more rarely heard, in recital or on disc. His Piano Quintet in F sharp minor wasn’t recorded until 1998 (Alexandre Tharaud and the Quatuor Parisii – Naïve, 4/00) and his Piano Quartet in G until 2002 (Yoko Kaneko and members of Quatuor Gabriel – Maguelone, 7/03). Both works feature on this welcome all-Hahn album from the excellent and enterprising Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective on Chandos.

Born in Caracas in 1874 to a German father and a Venezuelan mother, moving to France when he was just three, Hahn became the stylish darling of Parisian salons – and the lover of Marcel Proust – during the belle époque. He composed late Romantic works of great charm, laced with a heady dose of nostalgia, a non-progressive increasingly out of step with modernists. His chamber music was strongly influenced by his idol Gabriel Fauré, whom Hahn believed to be the last great composer, particularly the Piano Quintet, written a year after Fauré’s C minor Quintet.

The Quintet is wonderfully melodic, full of subtle harmonies. Kaleidoscope launch the Molto agitato e con fuoco opening with rhythmic drive and urgency, leading to a lyrical second theme marked dolce amoroso. Tom Poster’s fluent playing never swamps his string colleagues, who play with perfumed sweetness, led by first violin Elena Urioste. Cellist Laura van der Heijden leads the way in the grave, dignified Andante, before a gorgeous central section with rippling piano accompaniment. Clouds part for the Allegretto grazioso finale, which unfolds amiably, a sunny exchange of melodic ideas. Where Tharaud and the Quatuor Parisii can be a touch pale, Kaleidoscope play with greater tonal contrast, aided by the excellent Potton Hall acoustic.

Hahn’s Piano Quartet was completed in 1946, just a few months before his death. He seems to be looking back, the work opening with a melody oozing wistful charm. In their booklet note, Poster and Urioste write that after recording the work they discovered that the slow movement was transcribed from a solo piano work, Douloureuse rêverie dans un bois de sapins, published in 1912 in the collection Le rossignol éperdu, Hahn literally turning back time. The tiny Scherzo is dainty and Mendelssohnian, the finale again sunny and untroubled. Kaleidoscope play it with enormous affection and finesse.

The two chamber works are nestled in a bed of Hahn’s songs, four arranged by Poster for string quartet, two more for piano quintet. A highlight is the ‘Chanson d’automne’, a desolate song with a wisp of a moody tango. Alas, I find Karim Sulayman’s tenor a little too reedy, but he sings with affecting style and floats some lovely head notes, especially the humming at the end of ‘La barcheta’ to close this captivating album.