Le son du cor, French Music for Soprano, Horn and Piano

Barbara Costa: Born in Milan. She graduated in foreign languages and successfully attended Accademia Teatro alla Scala in 1999/2000. She won several singing international competitions and made her debut in the role of Madama Butterfly at Ponchielli theatre in Cremona.
She then performed in many leading roles (Tosca, Aida, Norma, Otello, Trovatore, Turandot, Ballo in maschera, Macbeth, Nabucco, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Löhengrin, Stabat Mater, and others) in several Opera theatres in Spain, Germany, Canada, Corea, Egypt, Serbia, Macedonia, Japan. She sings with the "Ensemble Strumentale Scaligero" and "Brass Ensemble" of Teatro alla Scala. She is co-founder of chamber trio "Trio Morgen". She published several album with Pomeriggi Musicali orchestra, Opera Ensemble and Trio Morgen, available on all streaming platforms. Beside singing, she is also an actress, having had a role in Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Variazioni Goldberg at Teatro Parenti theatre in Milan. She is a singing teacher in many schools and masterclasses. Moreover, she is a painter: she took part of Art Exhibitions in Rome (catalogued by "Pagine" L'arte sì Mostra), Como and Amalfi.

Emanuele Delucchi: Born in 1987. Pianist and composer, he studied with Canzio Bucciarelli (Genoa), Riccardo Risaliti (Imola) e Davide Cabassi (Bozen); he graduated in 2009 summa cum laude and in 2016 he got the Composition diploma. He has given recitals in Italy, Germany, France, UK, Greece, Slovenia, Croazia and Mexico and he has recorded for the labels Toccata Classics (music by Alkan-Da Motta, first recording, with pianist Vincenzo Maltempo), Dynamic (Beethoven-Drouet, Sonatas op. 30 with flutist Fabio De Rosa) and Piano Classics; his repertoire includes music from renaissance to contemporary age, with special attention for the less-known literature (he gave the first live performance of Pianist im klassischen Style op. 856 by C. Czerny in 2017 and first italian performance of the Concerto op. 39 by C. V. Alkan in 2009). He is an appreciated interpreter of the piano music by L. Godowsky (albums “Piano works” and “Studies on Chopin opus 10” are issued by the label Piano Classics and have been enthusiastically reviewed by critics Jeremy Nicholas, Jed Distler and Robert Nemecek). His own works are published by M.A.P. in Milan and Da Vinci Edition in Osaka; his Ricercare II for orchestra opened the VI Festival Primavera di Baggio in 2017. He is a voracious reader and a classical culture lover.

Roberto Miele: Born in Cassino in 1978. He reaches the Conservatoire Diploma at Frosinone "L. Refice Conservatoire" under the guide of M° D. Sebastiano. He continues his postgraduate studies with M° L. Giuliani. He starts his professional activity in 1996 at "Lirico Theatre" in Spoleto, which follows the "Academic Orchestra of Santa Cecilia" in Rome and the homonym "Youth Orchestra"(1997/2000), "Maggio Musicale Fiorentino" in Florence (1997), then "Lirico Theatre" in Cagliari. In May, 2001, he wins the International Competition at "La Scala Theater" in Milan, chosen by M° R. Muti, with whom immediately starts his activity as First Horn and assistant, both for "La Scala Theatre" and "La Scala Philarmonic Orchestra". Moreover, Roberto Miele is element of "Ensemble Strumentale Scaligero Teatro alla Scala" so as "La Scala's Horns" , "Trio Morgen" and many others. He is acclaimed soloist and appreciated teacher, very required in Italy and abroad for masterclasses and courses. He combines these activities with conduction of orchestras and ensembles, for which in many cases, cares also for transcriptions.

Morgen Trio was born in 2013 from the desire of its three founders: Barbara Costa - soprano, Roberto Miele - horn, Emanuele Delucchi - piano and from their constant search for music innovation. Each musician has an international solo career of over 15 years. The Trio is unique both in Italy and abroad with this stable formation, featuring the horn as a new and unexpected instrument in its repertoire. This is particulary evident for those pieces - specially transcribed - where the horn sound becomes a real surprise. The great ability and ductility of each of the three musicians, allows this uncommon Trio to space between very distant musical eras and generes. While being truthful to each period style, every transcriptions is really unique and exciting. Moreover, Triomorgen repertoire spaces between seven languages. TrioMorgen also performs new compositions written for them from contemporary authors. TrioMorgen mainly performed in Italy (Teatro Regio Parma, Amici del Loggione del Teatro alla Scala, Torino, Roma, ecc.).

Camille Saint-Saëns: (b Paris, 9 Oct 1835; d Algiers, 16 Dec 1921). French composer, pianist, organist and writer. Like Mozart, to whom he was often compared, he was a brilliant craftsman, versatile and prolific, who contributed to every genre of French music. He was one of the leaders of the French musical renaissance of the 1870s.

Eugène Bozza (b Nice, 4 April 1905; d Valenciennes, 28 Sept 1991). French composer and conductor. He studied with Büsser, Rabaud, Capet and Nadaud at the Paris Conservatoire where he won premiers prix for the violin (1924), conducting (1930) and composition (1934), and also the Prix de Rome with La légende de Roukmāni (1934). From 1938 to 1948 he conducted at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and in 1951 he was appointed director of the Ecole Nationale de Musique, Valenciennes, an appointment he held until his retirement in 1975. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 1956. Though his large-scale works have been successfully performed in France, his international reputation rests on his substantial output of chamber music for wind. This displays at a high level the qualities characteristic of mid-20th-century French chamber music: melodic fluency, elegance of structure and a consistently sensitive concern for instrumental capabilities.

Gabriel Fauré: (b Pamiers, Ariège, 12 May 1845; d Paris, 4 Nov 1924). French composer, teacher, pianist and organist. The most advanced composer of his generation in France, he developed a personal style that had considerable influence on many early 20th-century composers. His harmonic and melodic innovations also affected the teaching of harmony for later generations.

Hector Berlioz (b La Côte-Saint-André, Isère, 11 Dec 1803; d Paris, 8 March 1869). French composer. He stands as the leading musician of his age in a country, France, whose principal artistic endeavour was then literary, in an art, music, whose principal pioneers were then German. In many senses the Romantic movement found its fullest embodiment in him, yet he had deep Classical roots and stood apart from many manifestations of that movement. His life presents the archetypal tragic struggle of new ideas for acceptance, to which he gave his full exertions as composer, critic and conductor. And though there were many who perceived greatness in his music from the beginning, his genius only came to full recognition in the 20th century.

Jules Massenet (b Montaud, St Etienne, 12 May 1842; d Paris, 13 Aug 1912). French composer. He was the most prolific and successful composer of opera in France at the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th.

Paul Dukas (b Paris, 1 Oct 1865; d Paris, 17 May 1935). French composer, critic and teacher. Dukas was not only an influence on many French 20th-century composers and others such as Zemlinsky and Berg, but also remains important in his own right. His reputation rests on only a small number of compositions, notably the Piano Sonata, Ariane et Barbe-bleue, the ballet La Péri and L'apprenti sorcier. Dukas's influence as a critic, from 1892 to 1932, can be compared with Debussy's; his informed opinions reveal great sensitivity to the musical and aesthetic changes that took place during the period. With his high ideal of craftsmanship, Dukas was extremely self-critical and he destroyed a number of his compositions.

Reynaldo Hahn (b Caracas, 9 Aug 1874; d Paris, 28 Jan 1947). French composer, conductor and writer of Venezuelan birth. Hahn's mother, Elena Maria Echenagucia, came from a Spanish family, established in Venezuela since the 18th century. His father, Carlos Hahn, was born in Hamburg and emigrated to South America as a young man. Reynaldo was the youngest of 12 children and was not quite four years old when the family moved to Paris. Hahn had already shown a talent for music in Caracas; once in France he began to play, making his début, aged six, at a musical soirée hosted by the Princesse Mathilde, niece of Napoleon I. Hahn entered the Paris Conservatoire in October 1885, where his teachers included Massenet. While there he made the acquaintance of Ravel, Cortot and Edouard Risler, and began to compose songs, among them one which brought him early fame, Si mes vers avaient des ailes. This was dedicated to his sister Maria, who had married the painter Raymundo de Madrazo. It was at their house that Hahn met many of the leading young artists of the time, including Daudet, for whose play L'obstacle Hahn composed incidental music when he was only 16.

Hahn's song cycle to poems by Verlaine, Chansons grises, was completed while he was still a student at the Conservatoire. The first performance was given by Sybil Sanderson, Massenet's favourite soprano, at Daudet's house, with Verlaine present. Even during the years after his death, when Hahn's music fell out of favour, ‘L'heure exquise’, the fifth song of the group, remained known. Hahn's own voice, a light baritone, was put to good use throughout his career; he accompanied himself in his own songs, and in opera arias and popular songs of the day. A collection of 20 of Hahn's songs, published by Heugel in 1895, increased his celebrity, so much so that the novelist and explorer Pierre Loti allowed Hahn to adapt his autobiographical Le mariage de Loti as the opera L'île du rêve. By the time this received its first performance at the Opéra-Comique in 1898, France had been divided by the Dreyfus affair. Hahn and his two closest friends, Marcel Proust and the actress Sarah Bernhardt, joined the Dreyfusard camp. This political turmoil affected the lives of everyone in France, even after 1906 when Dreyfus was finally cleared. Hahn, partly Jewish and fiercely attached to France, was deeply disturbed by this conflict.

Neither L'île du rêve, nor Hahn's second opera, La Carmélite, which was given a prestigious première with Emma Calvé in 1902, remained in the repertory. This disappointment meant that most of Hahn's music composed between 1902 and the outbreak of war in 1914 was not for the stage, although his ballet Le bal de Béatrice d'Este, conceived merely as a divertissement, has remained one of his best-known and most regularly performed pieces. During the 1900s his career as a conductor and critic gained momentum. He began to write for journals (he was critic for La presse from 1899, then for La flèche from 1904); as well as conducting concerts of his own music, he organized a Mozart Festival in Paris, and was invited to conduct Don Giovanni at Salzburg. Although he continued to compose and publish songs, notably the cycle Etudes latines in 1900, his most extensive work from this period is the sequence of piano pieces gathered under the title Le rossignol éperdu (1902–10). A Proustian ethic seems to drive the music, with its evocations and memories of places and impressions. After long neglect, there was a revival of interest in Hahn's instrumental music in the 1990s.

Hahn took French nationality in 1909 and, at the outbreak of war in 1914, volunteered for the army (although he was over the official age limit for conscription). He served as a private, and was eventually promoted to corporal. While at the front he composed the cycle of five songs on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, and began to sketch his opera based on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

Hahn's greatest commercial success as a composer dates from the early 1920s. Returning to Paris after the war, and following the deaths of Proust and Bernhardt, Hahn composed Ciboulette, a nostalgic evocation of 19th-century Paris, set in the old market of Les Halles. This was a huge success, and was followed by the musical comedy about the adventures of the young Mozart in Paris, created for Yvonne Printemps (wife of the playwright Sacha Guitry) who acted and sang the role of the composer. Mozart, although tailored for the Guitrys, has been revived several times, as has a second collaboration with Guitry, O mon bel inconnu.

In the late 1920s Hahn composed what became his best-known concert work, a piano concerto, which was given its first performance by Magda Tagliaferro, who subsequently recorded it with the composer. Hahn's only major commission for the Paris Opéra was Le marchand de Venise. Although it was received with some enthusiasm, and had several revivals, Hahn's mixture of light, operetta-like music for the romantic scenes and his dramatic declamatory style for Shylock is problematic.

Because of his Jewish ancestry, Hahn's music was banned by the Nazis during the occupation of France (1940–44), and the elderly composer spent the war years partly in hiding, but still working on songs, instrumental music, and his final work for the stage, Le oui des jeunes filles, which was first performed posthumously.

At the end of the war, when Hahn returned to Paris (he had eventually settled in Monte Carlo), he was appointed director of the Opéra and during his tenure there he conducted an important revival of Méhul's Joseph, and gave his last concerts, with Tagliaferro and Ninon Vallin, one of his favourite sopranos, with whom he had recorded several of his own songs before the war.