Arthur Honegger

Oscar-Arthur Honegger (French: [aʁtyʁ ɔnɛɡɛʁ]; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. Honegger was a member of Les Six. For musicologist Halbreich, Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher is "more even than Le Roi David or Pacific 231, his most universally popular work".

Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger (the first name was never used) to Swiss parents in Le Havre, France, he initially studied harmony with Robert-Charles Martin (to whom he dedicated his first published work) and violin in Le Havre. He then moved to Switzerland, where he spent two years (September 1909 – June 1911) at the Zurich Conservatory being taught by Lothar Kempter and Friedrich Hegar. In 1911, he enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire from 1911 to 1918 (except for a brief period during the winter of 1914–1915, when he was mobilised in Switzerland), studying with Charles-Marie Widor, Lucien Capet, André Gédalge and Vincent d'Indy. Gédalge encouraged him to compose and Honegger announced his decision to become a composer in a letter to his parents dated 28 April 1915. He then praised his teacher Gédalge and his Traité de la fugue (1904), "the most complete work ever written on the subject". Gédalge taught his pupils the craft while respecting their ideas and personalities, he went on, and added that while some teachers trained their pupils well to succeed in competitions, "the most advanced musicians in terms of modern spirit were Gédalge's pupils".

Among his notable early works are his Six Poèmes d'Apollinaire (poems from Alcools), premiered in 1916 and 1918; 'Hommage à Ravel' from the Trois pièces pour piano (1915); Quatre Poèmes H. 7 (1914–1916); Trois Poèmes de Paul Fort (1916); his very Debussian Prélude pour Aglavaine et Sélysette (inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck's play: the prelude was premiered at the orchestral class in 1917, with a public premiere in 1920); Le Dit des Jeux du monde, commissioned in April 1918 by the Belgian poet Paul Méral, premiered by Walther Straram at Jane Bathori's Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, in December 1918 (Composed of thirteen short pieces that at times evoke Schönberg, this work dedicated to Fernand Ochsé, "caused a scandal comparable in every way to those of The Rite of Spring or of Parade"); Le Chant de Nigamon (1918, public premiere by the Orchestre Pasdeloup in 1920: his first symphonic piece, inspired by Gustave Aimard's adventure novel Le Souriquet with Native American themes (thanks to Julien Tiersot's Notes d'ethnographie musicale); his first String Quartet, "the composer's first fully accomplished masterpiece" (Halbreich 1992, p. 311) premiered in 1919 by the Quatuor Capelle; music for Vérité ? Mensonge ?, a ballet by André Hellé: four out of the ten tableaux were premiered at the Salon d'automne, on 25 November 1920, with Yvonne Daunt; and in 1920–1921 Pastorale d'été premiered by Vladimir Golschmann.

While at the conservatoire, Honegger befriended Jacques Ibert, then Milhaud, and then met Germaine Tailleferre and later Georges Auric as well as the pianist Andrée Vaurabourg. The first concert of the Nouveaux Jeunes took place at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier on 15 January 1918: Jane Bathori and Andrée Vaurabourg gave the Six Poèmes d'Apollinaire (now complete for the first time). Roland-Manuel was present, Halbreich notes that he might well have been one of the Six, as well as Jacques Ibert. Those who would later be known as "Les Six" wanted to create a fresh, French style of composition. Honegger was far from blending in with the group as his style was somewhat more serious ("I don't have a cult for street fairs or the music-hall", he wrote in a letter to Paul Landormy) and complex. Nevertheless, this association was important in establishing his reputation in the Parisian music scene. Honegger collaborated with the other members of Les Six only in 1920 (with a short 'Sarabande' for L'Album des Six), and 1921 (with a 'Marche funèbre' for Les mariés de la tour Eiffel, and finally in 1952 (with a 'Toccata' for La Guirlande de Campra).

Honegger's Sonata for cello and piano H. 32 composed in 1920 was premiered in 1921 by Diran Alexanian and Andrée Varabourg; Halbreich says that it "should be part of every cellist's repertoire" (Halbreich 1992, p. 330). He also wrote Danse de la chèvre (1921), which has become a staple in the flute repertoire. The work is dedicated to René Le Roy and written for solo flute.

Loie Fuller danced on three of the dances of Le Dit des Jeux du monde early in 1921. Also in 1921 Ernest Ansermet conducted the avant-garde music of the ballet-pantomime Horace victorieux in Lausanne (in a concert version). It evokes the fight of the Horatii and Curiatii and concludes with Camilla's death. Still in 1921, René Morax commissioned Honegger to write Le Roi David: he completed his score in two months, and on 11 June the 'dramatic psalm' (written as incidental music) was triumphantly received. On 13 March 1924, Honegger shot to fame when the French version re-orchestrated for large orchestra of Le Roi David was performed in Paris under the baton of Robert Siohan. It is still in the choral repertoire. "Making Le Roi David into an oratorio [or a 'psaume symphonique'] is one of the key events in the musical life of the first half of the 20th century," musicologist Mathieu Ferey wrote in the booklet for the recording of Le roi David by Daniel Reuss (Mirare). In this version, the spoken voices are replaced by a narrator, but the instrumentation remains the same: the work is written for the seventeen instruments available at the Théâtre du Jorat: no strings except for a double bass, winds, percussion, piano, harmonium and celesta. It was conducted by Georges Martin Witkowski in Lyon in January 1923 and is still played and recorded today.

Honegger's works were played in the US from 1921 when Rudolph Ganz directed Horace and Pastorale d'été.

In 1922, Honegger became one of the first major composers (after Camille Saint-Saëns) to write music specifically for films. His score (of which only the 'Ouverture' remains) for the silent film "La Roue" (1923) by Abel Gance marked the beginning of his long involvement with film music. 1922 He had met Gance through the French writer Ricciotto Canudo, an advocate of cinema as the "Seventh Art". He worked for Gance again in 1927 for Napoleon and in 1943 for Captain Fracasse.

1922 is also the year Honegger lost his mother (in February) and father (in September).

The Symphony No. 1 composed in 1929–30, was premiered in Boston and then in Paris in 1931. It is described by Harry Halbreich as "written in a language that is rougher and less spare than the following ones, despite a perfectly mastered form, at the crossroads of youth and maturity". Mouvement symphonique No 3 (composed in 1932–1933) was premiered in March 1933 by those who commissioned it: Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic. G. K. Spratt thought it was his best symphonic piece so far.

From 1925 onwards (L'Impératrice aux rochers with very Fauréan passages), the patron Ida Rubinstein (a former dancer with the Ballets Russes) financed several works by Honegger, who collaborated with Paul Valéry for Amphion (1931), as well as the ballet Sémiramis (1934), created by Ida Rubinstein at the Opéra. The former is best remembered for the composer's Prelude, Fugue et Postlude (first performed in 1948).

Honegger also collaborated with Serge Lifar for Icare (1935) for percussion and double bass, then for Le Cantique des cantiques, premiered in 1938. On this occasion the choreographer published his manifesto La Danse et la Musique (Revue Musicale, March 1938) in which he claimed the pre-eminence of dancers and choreographers in the conception of ballets.

L'Aiglon, drame lyrique (on a libretto by Henri Cain based on Edmond Rostand's 1900 play, L'Aiglon"), about the life of Napoleon II, was written in collaboration with Jacques Ibert in 1936 and premiered in 1937. Kent Nagano released a good CD recording of it in 2016. With the same composer (Ibert) Honegger wrote the operetta Les Petites Cardinal, in the same vein as Le Roi Pausole (Bouffes-Parisiens, 1938). He also wrote a very short piano piece with an original title in English, Scenic Railway in 1937, premiered in 1938. It was his contribution to a collaborative work, Parc d'Attractions – Expo. 1937: Hommage à Marguerite Long.

He remained active in the field of film music, notably with scores for Raymond Bernard's "Les Misérables" (1934), Pierre Chenal's Crime and Punishment; Les Mutinés de l'Elseneur and Anatole Litvak's Mayerling (1936 film), in collaboration with Maurice Jaubert (1936); and Pygmalion (1938). In 1939, the film score for Love Cavalcade was written partly by Milhaud (La cheminée du roi René is a suite drawn from his score) and partly by Honegger (his O Salutaris for voice, piano and organ or just organ (premiered in 1943) is derived from this work).

The Quartet n° 3, "unquestionably the pinnacle of his chamber music" for Jacques Tchamkerten was also composed in 1936–37; it was premiered in October 1937 by the Pro Arte Quartet. It had been commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. After this work, Honegger stopped writing chamber music, with only a few exceptions.

On a new commission from Ida Rubinstein he wrote a "dramatic oratorio", Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, to a libretto by Paul Claudel, premiered by Paul Sacher in Basel in 1938. It is thought of as one of his finest works, blending spoken word, music, and choral elements to tell the story of Joan of Arc. It remains one of his most frequently performed compositions. There is a DVD version recorded by Don Kent.

For Le Chant du Monde, he harmonized several French folk songs recorded under Désormière's direction: La femme du marin (CdM 513, May 1938) and Les trois princesses au pommier doux (CdM 520, October 1938) and two of his works were recorded, again by Désormière: Jeunesse recorded by the Chorale de la jeunesse, with an orchestra directed by Roger Désormière (CdM 501, fév 1938) and Petite suite en trois parties.

In 1932, Honegger published "Pour prendre congé", an article in which he complained that his music was not understood, he felt he was on a dead end. When Hitler came to power, Honegger's works were banned (in Germany and later in the countries that were annexed). In 1934, Vaura was seriously injured a car accident – Honegger escaped without serious injury. Above all, the political climate in Europe was increasingly tense. In 1937, Honegger had written Jeunesse for the Fédération musicale populaire: it was a song celebrating the singing tomorrows after the success of the Front Populaire. The lyrics were by Paul Vaillant-Couturier, a journalist at L'Humanité who tried to alert people to the realities of Hitler's regime and founded the first Maison de la culture (which included the Fédération musicale populaire) in France. Honegger took a clear stand against the Nazi regime in the June 1939 issue of the magazine Clarté: "He who creates cannot reconcile his dignity as an artist with the enslavement that fascism imposes". In 1931 Honegger, like many musicians and intellectuals, had already expressed his support for the manifesto for peace published in Notre temps which concluded with: "It is therefore important that this country [France], made so rich by its past achievements, should dare to proclaim that the new Europe and a Franco-German entente, which is its keystone, can only arise from agreements freely entered into by their pacified populations."

During World War II, Honegger, although he was Swiss, chose to remain in Paris, which was under Nazi occupation from 14 June 1940 to 24 August 1944. Honegger initially fled south, but returned to Paris at the end of October 1940. Nevertheless, he was allowed to continue his work without too much interference and even to travel abroad several times during the war years, mostly to conduct his music – only twice to Switzerland, and without his family.

In March 1940, in Basel, Sacher premiered the sacred oratorio La Danse des morts, whose libretto was by Paul Claudel (and based on the Bible), and it was a great success. to a libretto by Robert Favre Le Bret. The music used popular Swiss and Scottish themes. It featured Yvette Chauviré and Serge Peretti, dancer and choreographer. The press widely echoed it, and the critic of L'Epoque, Maurice Brillant wrote: "This is the first novelty given by the Opéra since the Liberation: it is worthy of the honour.". Honegger then produced a concert suite from it, Jour de Fête suisse.

Honegger again returned to ballet music by composing two tableaux (I and IV) of the ballet Chota Roustaveli on Nikolai Evreinov's libretto based on the poem by the great Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli (c. 1160 – after c. 1220), The Knight in the Panther's Skin, with Alexander Tcherepnin (act II) and Tibor Harsányi (act III), with a rhythmic base provided by Serge Lifar (Monte-Carlo, May 1946).

He also composed some film music, for Raymond Bernard's Un ami viendra ce soir (released in 1946): Souvenir de Chopin and Chant de la Délivrance are part of this score (although the latter had been composed earlier). His other film score was for Yves Allégret's Les démons de l'aube (1946), written in collaboration with his friend Arthur Hoérée.

1946 was marked by numerous trips in France and Europe, including during his holidays in Switzerland. In May, Claire Croiza died. In June, Honegger began his fourth symphony. In November he began giving classes at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, where his students included Yves Ramette.

His most important work, though, was that on his Symphony No. 4, subtitled "Deliciae basilienses" ("The Delights of Basel") and dedicated to his friend Paul Sacher. It is "a kind of Pastoral Symphony that pays tribute both to the beautiful city of Basel, bathed by the Rhine and where life is good, and to the friendship that bound the Swiss composer to the patron and conductor Paul Sacher". Completed in October, it was premiered by the dedicatee, in Basel, in January 1947. At the end of the second movement, the solo horn quotes Franz Abt's setting of Basel-born Johann Peter Hebel's poem "Z'Basel, a mim Rhi", and two minutes before the end of the third movement Honegger describes a carnival march: this is an evocation of Guggenmusik, typical brass bands of German-speaking Switzerland using the piccolo and the Basel drum, before a phrase full of nostalgia followed by a brief mocking farewell.

There was one more (short) piece written in December: Mimaamaquim, for voice (originally for Madeleine Martinetti's deep contralto voice) and piano. It was orchestrated in June 1947. According to Halbreich, it is (at least the version with orchestra) "one of the peaks of his work" in which he finds "the typical intonations of synagogue chant".

During the first months of 1947, Honegger was bursting with activity as his works were given in concert all over Europe. In April 1947, he found the time to compose a competition piece, Intrada, for trumpet and piano. In June he wrote some incidental music, Œdipe, for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, which was premiered in December 1947.

Honegger was then invited by Serge Koussevitzky at the beginning of July to give summer courses at the Tanglewood Music Center, following which he planned to go on tour throughout the US, then to Mexico and South America, where he was well-known thanks to Jane Bathori, who had made Le roi David and Judith known. A fortnight after he arrived, however, he suffered a heart attack that left him bedridden. A month later he suffered a massive heart attack. The composer nevertheless managed to recover and he returned to Paris on 15 November. He did not return to work until spring 1948.

In the spring of 1948, Honegger wrote Prélude, Fugue, Postlude, a suite after Amphion, premiered in November by Ansermet, then left for his first water cure at Bagnoles-de-l'Orne where he worked a little. Next came the Concerto da camera for flute, English horn and strings, finished in October 1948 and premiered in 1949, an "exquisite masterpiece". In October, he wrote incidental music (the score of which is lost) for Albert Camus's play The State of Siege , directed by Jean-Louis Barrault. In November, in Genoa, he resumed his conducting career, which he was to give up a year later (except in 1951 when he conducted the Orchestre National De La Radiodiffusion Française in Le Roi David in a recording studio, for Ducretet Thomson).

In June 1949, he completed a score for a final radio play in collaboration with Aguet, Saint-François d'Assise, whose broadcast was announced by Le Monde: "... this musico-literary radio work, specially noticed and recommended by the Premio Italia panel and premiered by Radio-Lausanne in June 1949, will be transmitted live from Lausanne by the national program this evening, Friday 2 December at 9 pm. Its performance will feature the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by Ernest Ansermet, the Montreux choir and the Radio-théâtre de Lausanne troupe". This is, for Halbreich, "the most important and the most beautiful" of his collaborations with Aguet.

In 1949, he resumed his frenetic pace, leaving him time to compose only two new radio plays: Marche contre la mort, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in tribute to Henri Guillaumet, whose plane was shot down on 27 November 1940, and Tête d'or, adapted from Claudel's play which he completed in January 1950.

By 1950, his health had deteriorated again. Nevertheless, he wrote a score for a documentary film, Bourdelle (about the sculptor, obviously), by René Lucot; another score for the documentary Paul Claudel, Paul Claudel's interview with Jean Amrouche filmed by André Gillet; and above all a new symphony, and a suite.

The Symphonie n° 5, written from August to December, premiered in 1951, is subtitled "Di tre re" (which refers to the three D notes at the end of each movement). It is marked by a stark and somber tone, reflecting the author's belief that the end of civilization was near: the work ends with a vision of nothingness.

On 18 December, "Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher" finally entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera, under the direction of Louis Fourestier. The event was once again hailed by Le Monde: "Jeanne au bûcher, in the stage version and in French, achieved in December 1950 one of the greatest, most spontaneous successes ever seen at this theatre".

In the first quarter of 1951, despite his increasingly failing health, Honegger still managed to compose an important orchestral piece, Monopartita, followed, at the end of the year, by two very short pieces for La rédemption de François Villon, a radio play by José Bruyr as well as his Toccata sur un thème de Campra, his contribution to La Guirlande de Campra, as well as a film score for Georges Rony's documentary La tour de Babel (1951) with the collaboration of Tibor Harsányi and Arthur Hoérée.

At the suggestion of Henri Büsser, Florent Schmitt and J.-G. Domergue, he was elected foreign associate member of the music section of the Académie des Beaux-Arts on 3 April 1952.

Arthur Honegger died in his studio, 71 boulevard de Clichy, on 27 November 1955. His funeral took place on 2 December 1955 at the Oratoire du Louvre, in the presence of a representative of French President René Coty and of Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians. The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Fritz Münch, director of the Strasbourg Conservatory and brother of friend Charles Münch, to the sound of the "lamento" from the Danse des morts and the "Alleluia' from Le Roi David. During the cremation at Père Lachaise Cemetery, several personalities made speeches, including Jean Cocteau. The urn passed between a hedge of Republican Guards presenting arms (although he remained a Swiss national and never took French citizenship), and was then taken to Saint-Vincent Cemetery, in the Montmartre district, where it is now placed under a simple tombstone.

The Paris Opéra paid tribute to him on 18 December 1955 with the Symphonie n°3 conducted by Louis Fourestier, followed by Jeanne au Bûcher, with Claude Nollier, creator of the role. In November 1956, his friends Georges Tzipine, Fernand Oubradous and Arthur Hoérée organized a series of concerts featuring works by Honegger, and the Quintet No. 4 for 2 violins, viola and 2 cellos, Op. 350, composed by his friend Darius Milhaud and dedicated to Honegger. In 1962, Poulenc, too, dedicated "à la mémoire de Arthur Honegger" one of the last pieces he completed, his Clarinet Sonata.

Many of Honegger's works were championed by his longtime friend Georges Tzipine, who conducted the premiere recordings of some of them (Cris du Monde, Nicolas de Flüe).

Honegger's discography is very extensive.

The principal elements of Honegger's style are Bachian counterpoint, driving rhythms, melodic amplitude, highly coloristic harmonies, an impressionistic use of orchestral sonorities, and a concern for formal architecture. His style is weightier and more solemn than that of his colleagues in Les Six. Far from reacting against German romanticism as the other members of Les Six did, Honegger's mature works show evidence of a distinct influence by it. "I place great importance on musical architecture", he wrote, which I would never want to see sacrificed for literary or pictorial reasons. I have a perhaps exaggerated tendency to seek polyphonic complexity. My great model is J. S. Bach. I am not aiming, as some anti-impressionist composers do, for a return to harmonic simplicity. On the contrary, I believe we should use the harmonic materials developed by the school that preceded us, but in a different way—as a base for lines and rhythms. Bach makes use of the elements of tonal harmony, just as I wish to make use of modern harmonic overlays. I do not subscribe to the cult of the Music Hall or of the street fair; on the contrary, I am committed to chamber music and symphonic music in their most serious and austere aspects).

Despite the differences in their styles, he and fellow Les Six member Darius Milhaud were close friends, having studied together at the Paris Conservatoire (as well as Tailleferre). Milhaud dedicated his fourth string quintet to Honegger's memory, while Francis Poulenc similarly dedicated his Clarinet Sonata.

"The work of composer Arthur Honegger stands out for its great diversity, ranging from tonality to atonality, without forgetting polytonality, using all registers, and respecting both the achievements of the past and the contributions of his contemporaries… he is not classifiable in any school.". This diversity in reality reflects an artistic journey whose coherence comes from the deep conviction that music is a true means of communication with the public. Halbreich notes that after Antigone, "The need to communicate took precedence over all others, and in his freely chosen mission as "musician in the city of men" Honegger considered the maintenance of an esoteric and avant-garde language as a narcissistic luxury contrary to his humanist demands, even if the aesthetes of art for art's sake suffered and disapproved of his choice. His only subsequent attempt at opera, L'Aiglon, was aimed at the immediate (and, it was accepted, perhaps ephemeral) approval of a vast popular audience, not that of a hypothetical and elitist posterity". It is for this reason that Honegger often aspired to a music free from too much formalism, too much seduction, and above all, in general, from musical habits. All his life he feared the danger of cultural habits, of different forms of collective consciousness (Cris du monde, 1931, the subject of which is "the revolt of the individual against the crowd that crushes him" according to Honegger, Plans, December 1931). This fear was justified by his ideology of authentic and above all meaningful music, capable of carrying a message, sometimes even a philosophical one as in his Symphony No. 3, 1945, which, according to the composer, "musically depicts the struggle in the heart of man between abandonment to the blind forces that enslave him and the instinct for happiness, the love of peace, the feeling of divine refuge".

The diversity of his works is therefore easy to understand: what each of them had to say in a new way required, in his eyes, a new language. He thus explored different genres and techniques, taking an equal interest in Claude Debussy's or Gabriel Fauré's harmony, Igor Stravinsky's rhythm, Beethovenian form, Arnold Schoenberg's genius – excluding serialism – in Le Dit des Jeux du Monde. He also made use of new instruments, or instruments used in new ways: the bowed instruments invented by Léo Sir in Hymne; the saw in Antigone (1927), tam-tam (Pacific 231 and many other pieces), three saxophones in Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, a bouteillophone (bottles filled with varying amounts of water) for No. 7 of Dit des Jeux du Monde, a piece for solo percussion; and even electronic instruments such as the ondes Martenot (in Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, played by Maurice Martenot himself at the premiere in 1938, but already used in films such as Berthold Bartosch's L'Idée, 1934).

The apparent simplicity of some passages of his music masks the work he did on each passage of his major works in the sense of objectivity, i.e. the strictly musical coherence of the piece: everything depends on it, including the complexity of the techniques, which, according to him, should only be pushed if necessary, as in Horace Victorieux (1921), "his most radical and daring masterpiece", or in his symphonies. The complexity and, above all, the interest of his main compositions lies in the work of relative objectivity. He often played on the scope of the subjects he dealt with. He sought to reach a profound and universal dimension of humanity. This is why his religious works (he was a Protestant) go beyond the strict framework of religion to reach a more universal and human dimension. This explains the success of Joan of Arc at the stake, for example. This did not stop him from sometimes being more concerned with reacting to the culture of his time, as in Pacific 231 (1923), for example, where Honegger was nevertheless careful not to fall into the anecdote of noise music.

Honegger was pictured on the Swiss twenty franc banknote (eighth series), issued in October 1996 and replaced in 2017.

Honegger's symphonic movement Rugby was recorded with him conducting the Paris Symphony Orchestra in a 1929 electrical recording. Many of Honegger's recordings as conductor of his music have been reissued on CD by Pearl and Dutton.

The ice hockey player Doug Honegger is his grandnephew.

Opus numbers originate from the complete catalogue by Harry Halbreich. For a longer list of compositions, see List of compositions by Arthur Honegger. For a list of select recordings, see Arthur Honegger discography.

1941: H 153 Second Symphony for strings and trumpet in D

1946: H 186 Third Symphony "Symphonie Liturgique"

1946: H 191 Fourth Symphony "Deliciae basilienses" in A

1950: H 202 Fifth Symphony "Di tre re" in D

Arthur Honegger is a 40-minute film interview by Georges Rouquier released in 1955.

Interview for Radio-Lausanne by Evelyne Schlumberger (on Youtube)

Images filmed for the news broadcast: Presentation of the Legion of Honour; the French news also filmed some footage at the Père Lachaise Cemetery during his funeral.