The adaptation of secular music to sacred texts has a long history, from the Westron Wynde Mass to Vaughan Williams’ use of folk tunes for hymns, to give two of many examples. In the case of Hahn’s A Chloris, Bach’s celebrated bass line (beloved alike of 20th century jazzeurs élégants and the advertising industry), underpins with solemnity a French Baroque poem set in 1913 by a Venezuelan naturalised Frenchman. Accusations of pasticherie may therefore be cheerfully accepted, as Hahn’s melancholy and decorated song is itself pastiche, revealing a European sensibility acquired from early childhood when he came to France.

Worshippers in an English church are, one hopes, unlikely to be troubled by hearing Hahn’s moving masterpiece pressed into the service of the great Catholic prayer to the Virgin, always assuming
that their sympathies are not excessively Reformed.

The writer is solely responsible for the underlay, adaptation and repetitions; likewise, the three final Amens.

Hugh Hetherington, Salisbury 2019