Arthur Honegger, 1892-1955. Concerto da Camera for Flute, English Horn, and String Orchestra, Op. 188. Completed 1948, first performance May 6, 1949, in Zürich. Scored for solo flute and English horn, accompanied by strings.
The Swiss-descended composer Arthur Honegger was something of a misfit. Born in France and living most of his life there, he never completely reflected either nationality. When he was young, pundits searching for consistency labeled him one of `` Les Six,'' a group of up-and-coming French composers, although his style was not at all similar to that of the others and he detested the music of Eric Satie, another member of the journalist-contrived group.
Like his older colleague Maurice Ravel, who regretted the popularity of his ``orchestral crescendo'' Bolero, Honegger was embarrassed by his best-known piece, which was conceived as little more than an exercise in musical acceleration. Mouvement symphonique no 1 might have been a forgotten trifle save for the subtitle Pacific 231, whose image of a steam locomotive caught the public's fancy. ( Pacific 231 was the first of three such experiments; Honegger left the third untitled in hopes that it would be seen as pure music---a decision that was perhaps too successful, for the work is rarely played.)
Honegger was an activist on behalf of his fellow composers, often decrying in print the treatment (or, in his view, the mistreatment) of modern music. Starting in the Twenties, and continuing until his death, he wrote and spoke of the difficulties of earning a living, of satisfying a public enamored with the past, and of the demands placed by the practicalities of too-short rehearsals under tyrannic conductors. Yet for all of his complaining, he refused to give up his profession, and eventually his music may have done more for the cause than his prose.
In 1947, while on a tour of the United States, Honegger suffered his first bout of the angina that would eventually end his career. Although greatly weakened, he continued composing, and in early 1948 accepted a commission from Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague-Coolidge, a noted patron of the arts, to write the Concerto da Camera, or chamber concerto. In fulfilling it, he produced a superb example of 20th-century music, breaking the bonds of tonality without even slightly offending the listener's ear. From the peaceful dissonances of the opening to the lively acrobatics of the final movement, this is
a work that, ironically, will become precisely what Honegger objected to: a composition that, centuries after it was penned, will remain so enjoyable that it pushes more recent efforts from the concert stage.
© 1996, Geoff Kuenning
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