1st Symphony (Honegger)

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The Symphony No. 1 H75 by the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger was composed in 1929/1930 as a commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra . Like all of Honegger's symphonies, it has three movements and is tonally based on the C note.

Instrumentation and sentence names

Piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 oboes , English horn , 2 clarinets , bass clarinet , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon - 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba - bass drum , tam-tam - 1st and 2nd violins , violas , cellos and double basses .

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. adagio
  3. Presto

music

The first movement is interspersed with contrapuntal motifs and is still in the massive style of his earlier orchestral works such as Pacific 231 . Hard eighth-note rhythms based on machine sounds are always interspersed with chromatics and syncopation by the brass . The broad Adagio is dominated by a string melody, which, after an interpretation in the orchestral tutti, returns to the opening bars at the end of the movement, distorted by trombone glissandi and scraps of melody from the woodwinds. The finale is designed with a toccata-like shape. There is also an orchestral superimposition principle, i.e. the addition of new groups of instruments over and over again - a compositional technique that Honegger often used. Unexpectedly, the Presto turns into an Andante tranquillo at the end. This epilogue is dominated by wind melodies and is harmoniously very adapted to the rest of the composition.

Origin and premiere

The conductor of the world premiere of Pacific 231, Serge Koussevitzky , commissioned Honegger in 1929 to compose an orchestral piece for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra . This commission resulted in the first symphony, which was premiered on February 13, 1931 by the client.

literature

  • Attila Csampai, Dietmar Holland (ed.): The concert guide. Orchestral music from 1700 to the present. 1st edition. Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-8052-0450-7 .
  • Malcolm MacDonald: Honegger. Symphonies 1-5. Translation by Eckhart van den Hoogen. EMI France, 1979.
  • Ulrich Tadday (Ed.): Arthur Honegger. Music concepts 135. Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88377-855-6 .

Web links