Arthur Honegger

French classical composer

  • Born: March 10, 1892
  • Birthplace: Le Havre, France
  • Died: November 27, 1955
  • Place of death: Paris, France

Honegger composed more than two hundred works in a variety of genres, including music for the theater, concert hall, and cinema. His unique approach to form and his integration of French and German musical traditions are hallmarks of his innovative style.

The Life

Oscar Arthur Honegger (HOH-nehg-gur) was born to Swiss parents in Le Havre, France, where he spent his youth. After two years at the Zurich Conservatory, Honegger enrolled at the prestigious Paris Conservatory, where he studied from 1911 to 1918. In 1920 he became a member of Les Six, the collective of six young Parisian composers whose fashionable, lighthearted style and audacious stage works epitomized the French avant-garde’s obsession with youth and novelty following World War I.

Honegger came to international prominence with his 1921 Le Roi David, psaume symphonique, and the same year saw an increase in activity by Les Six, including their only collaborative stage work, Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel. His increasing fame led to further collaborations with Jean Cocteau, René Morax, Paul Claudel, and Paul Valéry. In 1926 Honegger married the talented pianist Andrée Vaurabourg, with whom he spent the rest of his life.

During the 1930’s Honegger composed a great amount of music for radio, film, and the theater, geared to both public audiences and musical sophisticates. Throughout his career he maintained close ties with Switzerland, notably through conductor Paul Sacher, who premiered many of Honegger’s most substantial works, including Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher; Symphony No. 2 in D Major; Symphony No. 4; and his last work, Une Cantate de Noël.

During the occupation of Paris, Honegger taught at the École Normale de Musique. In 1947 he suffered a heart attack, and his declining health diminished his compositional activity. His autobiography, I Am a Composer (1966), conveys a pessimistic view of the future of music. Honegger, who made Paris his lifelong home, became Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1954, and he died in his home on November 27, 1955.

The Music

Honegger’s early appreciation of Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Strauss, and Richard Wagner instilled in the composer a commitment to ideals of musical beauty based on thematic unity and formal structure. His studies in Paris led him to pursue the contrapuntal techniques, expanded harmonic idiom, and emphasis on classical form espoused by the Paris Conservatory. Honegger’s adherence to these principles is evident from his lighthearted works of the 1920’s through his mature symphonic works of the 1940’s and 1950’s, and it lends his music an aesthetic of high seriousness. His idiosyncratic approach to tonality, based more on pitch-centricity than common practice harmony, manifests itself as patterns of tension and release, corresponding to relative harmonic dissonance and consonance. Honegger’s music often uses driving rhythms, coloristic harmonies, and extremes in melodic amplitude and timbre. His lyric and colorful passages point to the influences of Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, and Jules Massenet. Honegger’s five symphonies, written at a time when the genre was under relative neglect, are testaments to the composer’s alliance with tradition.

Early Works. Honegger’s earliest compositions were chamber music, small works for orchestra, and music for the stage and ballet. His student works show experimentation with different aspects of his voice, at turns immensely complex and lyrically elegant. Le Chant de Nigamon, a symphonic poem, is based on a morbid tale of an Iroquois chief who is burned at the stake, and it utilizes authentic American Indian melodies which compete in a sonata form. Le Dit des jeux du monde caused a riotous scandal at its premiere because of Honegger’s agitated, highly dissonant music and radical stage effects. His 1920 Symphonic Poem for Chamber Orchestra, Pastorale d’été, shows a light, relaxed, and Romantic style that is also evident in his chamber pieces and operettas.

Le Roi David. In 1921 Honegger accepted a commission to write the incidental music for René Morax’s biblical drama Le Roi David. Written in two months, the music was originally scored for three vocal soloists with choir and a small pit band. After its initial towering success, Honegger, who became known as “le roi Arthur,” reworked the piece for large orchestra, the form heard most often today. The piece presents a series of short scenes from the life of the biblical king David, linked by tonal and thematic correspondences to the dramatic action. Drawing on styles reminiscent of Igor Stravinsky, Massenet, Maurice Ravel, and Honegger’s idol, Johann Sebastian Bach, the extreme eclecticism of the music reveals Honegger’s Expressionist style, juxtaposing and blending a great variety of musical idioms. Honegger contrasts simplicity and complexity through his use of austere chorale tunes and lyrical melodies placed against massively wrought passages and abrupt tonal shifts. The music is exciting, majestic, and at times grotesque, and it played a major role in solidifying Honegger’s status as one of the most innovative and serious composers of his generation.

Mouvement Symphonique No. 1. Honegger’s passion for trains inspired him to write the short Mouvement Symphonique No. 1, also known as Pacific 231, named after the powerful steam locomotive. The work has been viewed as a musical depiction of a train, although Honegger insisted the title was an afterthought. Using the form of an extended chorale, Honegger sought to portray the visual and experiential qualities of trains with a novel, conceptual treatment of rhythm, pitting tempo and rhythmic momentum against one another, creating the effect of rhythmically speeding up while the tempo gradually slows down.

Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher. Honegger had great success with his dramatic oratorio Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher. Paul Claudel’s masterful libretto presents Joan of Arc as she is burned at the stake, telling her story through a series of flashbacks. The music draws on realistic pictorialisms, through the use of folk music, trumpet calls, psalmody, hymns, laments, and chiming bells, interspersed with passages conveying the mystical ecstasy associated with the French saint. The innovative orchestration includes parts for saxophone, tempered piano, and ondes Martenot (an electronic musical instrument). Honegger’s trademark style of French prosody, in which the first syllable of text begins on the downbeat as opposed to the conventional anacrusis, lends an air of dignity and power to the vocal setting.

Musical Legacy

For composers of the subsequent generation, Honegger was regarded as a monumental figure who composed innovative, novel music while engaging with the traditions of the past, contributing some of the most important dramatic and symphonic works of the first half of the twentieth century. Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messaien, Hans Werner Henze, and Luigi Dallapiccola memorialized Honegger after his death, pointing to his critical influence on contemporary music. Honegger’s music stands apart for its craftsmanlike rigor and ingenuity without abandoning the tonal system or relying on contemporary technical models. He is notable for his prolific work in film, his interest in recording his music for a wide public audience, and his professed desire to write accessible music appealing to both the average musical listener and the connoisseur.

Principal Works

ballets (music): Le Dit des jeux du monde, 1918 (libretto by Paul Méral); Vérité? Mensonge?, 1920 (Truth? Lies?; libretto by André Hellé); Danse de la chévre, 1921 (Dance of the Goat; libretto by Sacha Derek); La Noce massacrée, 1921 (The Ruined Wedding; libretto by Jean Cocteau); Skating Rink, 1922 (libretto by Ricciotto Canudo); Sous-marine, 1925 (libretto by Carina Ari); Horace victorieux, 1928 (libretto by Guy-Pierre Fauconnet; based on Titus Livius’s poem); Les Noces d’Amour et de Psyché, 1928 (The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche; libretto by Ida Rubenstein); Roses de métal, 1928 (libretto by Elisabeth de Gramont); Amphion, 1931 (libretto by Paul Valéry); Sémiramis, 1934 (libretto by Valéry); Icare, 1935 (libretto by Serge Lifar); Un Oiseau blanc s’est envolé, 1937 (libretto by Sacha Guitry); Le Cantique des cantiques, 1938 (The Song of Songs; libretto by Gabriel Boissy and Lifar); Le Mangeur de rêves, 1941 (The Dream Eater; libretto by Henri-René Lenormand); L’Appel de la montagne, 1945 (The Call of the Mountain; libretto by Robert Favre le Bret); Chota roustaveli, 1946 (libretto by Nicolas Evreinoff and Lifar); La Naissance des couleurs, 1949 (The Birth of Colors; libretto by Ernest Klausz and René Morax).

choral works:Le Roi David, psaume symphonique, 1921, revised 1923; Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, 1938 (libretto by Paul Claudel); Une Cantate de Noël, 1953.

film scores:La Roue, 1923; Napoléon, 1927; La Fin du monde, 1931; L’Idée, 1932; Cessez le feu, 1934; Der Dämon der berge, 1934; Les Misérables, 1934; Rapt, 1934; Crime et châtiment, 1935; L’Équipage, 1935; Les Mutinés de l’elseneur, 1936; Mademoiselle Docteur, 1937; Miarka, la fille à l’ourse, 1937; Passeurs d’hommes, 1937; Regain, 1937; The Woman I Love, 1937; Pygmalion, 1938; Cavalcade d’amour, 1940; Le Captaine Fracasse, 1943; Les Démons de l’aube, 1946; Un Ami viendra ce soir, 1946; Un Revenant, 1946; Storm over Tibet, 1952; Giovanna d’Arco al rogo, 1954.

operas:Judith, 1926 (libretto by René Morax); Antigone, 1927 (libretto by Jean Cocteau; based Sophocles’ play); Les Aventures du roi pausole, 1930 (The Adventures of King Pausole; libretto by Albert Willemetz; based on Pierre Louÿs’s novel); La Belle de moudon, 1931 (libretto by Morax); L’Aiglon, 1937 (libretto by Henri Cain; based on a play by Edmond Rostand); Les Petites Cardinal, 1938 (libretto by Willemetz and Paul Brach; based on Ludovic Halévy’s novel).

orchestral works:Le Chant de Nigamon, 1917; Mouvement Symphonique No. 1, 1924 (Pacific 231); Symphonic Poem for Chamber Orchestra, 1924 (Pastorale d’été); Mouvement Symphonique No. 2, 1929 (Rugby, Tone Poem); Symphony No. 2 in D Major, 1942 (for strings and trumpet); Symphony No. 3, 1946 (Liturgique); Symphony No. 4, 1946; Symphony No. 5 in D Major, 1951 (Di Tre Re).

Bibliography

Halbreich, Harry. Arthur Honegger. Translated by Roger Nichols. Portland, Oreg.: Amadeus Press, 1999. This authoritative biography provides a meticulously detailed account of Honegger’s life and works, and it includes a series of topical essays on the composer.

Honegger, Arthur. I Am a Composer. Translated by Wilson O. Clough and Allan Arthur Willman. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966. An exposition of the composer’s life, music, and philosophy in his own words, offering a provocative, if deeply pessimistic, view of the future of music, art, and civilization.

Spratt, Geoffrey K. The Music of Arthur Honegger. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 1987. An exhaustive study of Honegger’s music, focusing primarily on major dramatic works and the development of his musical language.

Waters, Keith. Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the Music of Arthur Honegger. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. This concise volume offers a heavily analytical look at rhythm and counterpoint in Honegger’s music.