Arthur Honegger & the "Une Cantate de Noel", Oboe Player Music Technology

Arthur Honegger

A) Arthur Honegger was a composer born in Le Havre on March 10, 1892. While still at a young age, he was sent to the Zurich Conservatory by his father. While at the conservatory he studied violin, conducting, and harmony under Freidrich Hegan, who was, among his many talents, a very distinguished musician. With Honegger under his instruction, Hegan immediately recognized the massive potential of the young man.

When he was 21, Honegger moved to Paris where he was soon thereafter accepted into the Paris Conservatory. While there he met his best friend Darius Milhaud. Among Honegger’s idols were ironically German composers such as Mozart and especially Bach though his musical training consisted of a French background. While he was mostly encompassed in his music, Honegger also partook of drama and literature, along with sports such as football and rugby.

After spending a few years in Switzerland from1914-1915, Honegger began the composition of his final series of orchestral works. Along with being a noted lecturer, conductor, and accompanist, he was also a member of Les Six which was a group of composers who were against Romantic music. Three years before his death in 1955, Honegger finished The Christmas Cantata in 1952.

B) In the 1920’s a group of anti-romantic French composers formed a group by the name of Les Six. These six composer’s (Honegger, Auric, Durey, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Taille Ferre) formation was a direct result of an essay by Henri Callet. All six men were conservatory students and Honegger, Auric, and Milhaud were students of Gedalge. The entire group formed under the mentoring of Satie, a highly praised composer whom all of them except Honegger held above all other composers. Honegger was the only one of the six that didn’t really and totally agree with Satie. One of the group’s most avid composers was Cocteau who not only supported the group itself but their musical principles as well.

The group’s ideals included the freedom of music from all foreign musical traits, particularly German. They disapproved of such composers as Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, and Shoenberg. The group’s music used everyday life as its subject which contained dry, brave, and straightforward qualities. The two collaborations of Les Six included a piano piece called Album Des Six, and a play-ballet with text and choreography called Les Maries de la tour Eiffel. Les Six stayed together only a few years until the group broke up and each composer went his own separate way.

C) Neo-classicism is a 20^th Century style of composing brought by the reintroduction of balanced forms and clearly perceived thematic processes of earlier styles to replace the over-exaggerated gesticulation and absence of form of the late Romanticism. A neo-classicist is prone to reject the structural tonal system found in true classical music and instead use expanded tonality, modality, or atonality. Just the term "neo" itself implies a deviation from the traits of true classical music. The whole idea of neo-classicism was a direct result of anti-romanticism in an attempt to refine and control expressionism. Neo-Classicism is less known for its reinstitution of the technique of composers like Mozart and Haydn, but known more-so for its power in the manipulation of previous elements. The three schools of neo-classicism are those of Stravinsky, Shoenberg, and Hindemith.

D) The instrumentation of Honegger’s Cantate de Noel consists of the following: Baritone soloist, Mixed choir(SATB), Children’s choir, Organ, and Orchestra. Forming the orchestra were: Harp, Violins, Violas, Cellos, Basses, Trumpets(3), French Horns(4), Trombones(3), Oboes(2), Bassoons(2), Flutes(2), Piccolo, and Clarinets(2). This instrumentation is very suggestive of a neo-classical work. When compared with romantic composers especially Wagner and comparing his orchestration to that of this piece; anti-romanticism/neo-classicism is obvious.

E) When Honegger first began the cantata, he was working in collaboration with the swiss aargau poet Casar Von Arx. Then work by was inspired by a poem by Von Arx and it was he who was initially writing the libretto for the work. When Von Arx’s wife died he committed suicide, leaving the libretto unfinished. Honegger immediately stopped the work on the piece and didn’t resume again until the early 1950’s, nearly 12 years later. Honegger got the remaining text from various European carols including: De Profundis, Jois et Paix sur toi Israel! Voici venir Emmanuel, Es ist ein rosentsprungen, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Il est ne le Divin Enfant, Von Himmel Hoch,ihrEngelein,kommt, Stille Nacht,Hellige Nacht, and Laudate Dominum. All of these carols which encompassed French, German, Austrian, and English, each sung in their native tongue and juxtaposed upon each other; provides a clear representation of the piece’s celebration of both christmas and of peace and goodwill among men of different nations.

F) Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Britten’s Billy Budd, and Hindemith’s Cardillac were choral/orchestral works composed in the NeoClassic style.

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