Arthur Honegger (1892--1955), Swiss by nationality, French by education and residence, was a major composer of the 20th century. Although he earned popular acclaim early in his career, in his later years his consistently tonal musical language was considered outmoded. His most significant works include five symphonies, a large body of chamber music, and several large-scale oratorios that combine choral and instrumental writing with declaimed narrative in a uniquely effective way. HARDCOVER

This important study considers both Honegger's life and his works. With the cooperation of Honegger's daughter, Pascale Honegger, Harry Halbreich has fully documented the composer's life since childhood; all his works are treated, with many of the more significant ones analyzed in detail. A concluding section attempts to discover, by examining the common threads in his life and music, the true nature of this giant, whose stature is finally being recognized more than forty years after his death.

Studie over het werk van de Zwitserse laat-romantische componist (1892-1955)

Story-like chapters profile six twentieth-century reactive composers; not the most famous pillars of the period but lesser-known, perhaps more approachable, characters whose stories span that 1900-2000 period from decadent fin-de-siècle Vienna (Alban Berg, Alexander Zemlinsky) to war-torn Paris (Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honegger) to the Cold War tensions of East vs. West (Tōru Takemitsu) and late-century Communism (Arvo Pärt). Their stories were all very different crises, and they produced very different kinds of music; each very telling of their composers life and times. Crisis Music presents each brief biography almost like a detective story looking for motives, then spotlights one particular piece of music from each composer that emerged directly out of hard times maybe a political crisis at the time of composition (Hitler marching into Paris or later Communist crack-downs); or some personal angst such as illness or scandal and how that music contains and expresses crisis. In short, the subject for discussion is how context influences content. Such troubled and especially vivid composition, crisis music, can often be most compelling and meaningful for its composer and for its time. Indeed, their music also seems to have a special resonance to share with our own crisis-prone times. And meanwhile, Western music history played-out its own story from late-romantic style to Serialism and Minimalism to the anything-goes Pluralism we hear today. Crisis Music sparks the discussion about how history, biography and music intersects. At the behest of music teachers at secondary and tertiary levels, Crisis Music contains substantive Discussion Questions geared for classroom use.

The absorbing, comprehensive story of an absolutely unique experiment in classical music, involving many key figures of the Dada and Surrealist movements Les Six were a group of talented composers who came together in a unique collaboration that has never been matched in classical music, and here their remarkable story is told for the first time. A musical experiment originally conceived by Erik Satie and then built upon by Jean Cocteau, Les Six were also born out of the shock of the German invasion of France in 1914—an avant-garde riposte to German romanticism and Wagnerism. Les Six were all—and still are—respected in music circles, but under the aegis of Cocteau, they found themselves moving among a whole new milieu: the likes of Picasso, René Clair, Blaise Cendrars, and Maurice Chevalier all appear in the story. But the story of Les Six goes on long after the heyday of Bohemian Paris—the group never officially disbanded and it was only in the last 20 years that the last member died; moreover, their spouses, descendents, and associates are still active, ensuring that the remarkable legacy of this unique group survives.

In Renegotiating French Identity, Jane Fulcher addresses the question of cultural resistance to the German occupation and Vichy regime during the Second World War. Nazi Germany famously stressed music as a marker of national identity and cultural achievement, but so too did Vichy. From the opera to the symphony, music did not only serve the interests of Vichy and German propaganda: it also helped to reveal the motives behind them, and to awaken resistance among those growing disillusioned by the regime. Using unexplored Resistance documents, from both the clandestine press and the French National Archives, Fulcher looks at the responses of specific artists and their means of resistance, addressing in turn Pierre Schaeffer, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, and Olivier Messiaen, among others. This book investigates the role that music played in fostering a profound awareness of the cultural and political differences between conflicting French ideological positions, as criticism of Vichy and its policies mounted.

This book is about the use of exoticism, particularly the use of masks and stylized movement, in opera and other musical theater genres of the twentieth century. The author explores in depth a topic that effects a wide variety of important composers, dancers, and dramatists, but has never been comprehensively studied.