Nouvelles des ports

aquarelle marine - marine watercolor

Rafiots et compagnies

aquarelle marine cargo au mouillage - marine watercolor cargo ship at anchor

Nouvelles des escales

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Excelsior january 18, 1925

An interview with Arthur Honegger

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE COMPOSER HONEGGER

Powerful with a power that he externalizes and amplifies in his music, Mr. Honegger, the young and already very famous composer of King David, is not one to interview: you enter into conversation with him, you talk to him and you listen to him. And you are charmed to see him simple, cordial and spontaneous when he gives you some detail about his life, and reserved, almost embarrassed, when you remind him of his victories, his successes.
He was born in Le Havre, to Swiss parents, in 1892. He "started music quite early"... enough to write operettas at the age of nine. He spent a year at the Zurich Conservatory (he was then eighteen) and at the Paris Conservatory he studied with these masters: Gédalge, Widor, Vincent d'Indy.

In December 1918, at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, he gave his debut performance of Le Dict des jeux du monde, which was very mixedly received.
Things were quite different at the Concerts Pasdeloup, when they heard Le Chant de Nigamon, a symphonic poem on the death of a Red Indian chief, for which he had drawn inspiration from Gustave Aimard, and at the Concerts Colonne, in front of the Source de l'Interlude de Sainte-Almaéenne, taken from a musical piece, made with Max Jacob, Horace le Victorieux was given at the Opera for the first time and the most daring stage was covered by the Pacific 231, this powerful locomotive. which astonished with its breath at rest. the panting of departure, the increasing rhythm of speed and the prodigious sonority of its race towards infinity.
Le Roi David, incidental music made in two months for the play by René Morax, was first performed in Switzerland at the Théâtre du Jorat. The version for the concert, in the form of an oratorio, was given at the Salle Gaveau, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and it will be heard at the Trocadéro on January 29 with the French choir and Mr. Jacques Copeau as narrator.
The performance contributed greatly to the success. I believe that this is due to the simple and direct side of the work which will be performed next year in New York by the choirs and orchestra of the Métropolitain-Opéra.

— And you are fully satisfied?
— The role of the composer is comparable to an illness that one contracts very young and from which one can no longer get rid. Difficulties do not cure you and the situation of young composers is full of them.
— Don't you have the violin as your hobby?
— I worked on it a little with Capet, also the organ a little, but I gave up. The material side of writing music is so long and painful that it takes up your time.
— But do you have the rhythms of life to distract you or inspire you?
— I find that a locomotive is a source of emotion like a cathedral. It is also a work of art. The automobile touches me, less. Yet it is the only luxury that I envy.
— And in your art, who do you admire?
— The great classics and the one to whom I attribute all the wisdom of music is Bach. Among the living authors: Ravel, Stravinsky, Schmitt and Roussel; among my comrades, the elements of the famous group of six: Auric, Poulenc, Milhaud. Germaine Tailleferre and Louis Durey.

— How do you work? With as much method as possible.

— When I'm really going, I lock myself away and prepare my own lunch... I also work at night. - ROGER VALBELLE.


Arthur Honegger Le Chant de Nigamon Pacific 231

Back January 18, 1925