Arthur Honegger's Film Music - Crime et Châtiment; etc. (Adriano)

Information

Composer: Arthur Honegger

• (01) Farinet ou L'Or dans la Montagne (Suite, 1938)
• (02) Crime et Châtiment (Suite, 1934)
• (07) Le Déserteur ou Je t'attendrai (Fragment symphonique, 1939)
• (08) Le Grand Barrage (Image musicale pour orchestre, 1942)
• (09) L'Idée (complete score, 1934)

Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Adriano, conductor

Date: 1993
Label: Marco Polo
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.223466

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Review

Last September, I reviewed a Honegger disc by Michel Plasson and his fine Toulouse Capitole Orchestra, and noted their inclusion of works barely known save to specialists, such as Horace victorieux, Le vol sur l'Atlantique and La traversee des Andes. Little did I suspect that another would shortly come my way with even more obscure repertory, and the theme here is the cinema, Honegger having contributed to around 50 films between 1923 and 1951. Although his scores to Napoleon and Les miserables are in the catalogue, most are forgotten, but some titles tantalize, such as Pygmalion and a Faux monnayeurs. Farinet is not listed in Grove, but, according to the booklet, Honegger contributed six minutes of music to a score by Arthur Hoeree: the 'suite' played here consists of these four numbers. As for the other works, the music to Crime and Punishment dates from 1934 and so does the animated film L'Idee (the longest item), while Le Deserteur belongs to 1939. Le Grand Barrage remains a mystery: in his useful booklet essay, the conductor Adriano calls it ''a short, exciting symphonic picture from 1942'' which ''may have been conceived for a documentary or even a short film'', but it is not in Grove and with its duration of just 185 seconds hardly suggests a finished work.

I have spent much space in discussing the provenance of the music, but hasten to add that it proves to be worth investigation, being characterful and strongly scored. The Swiss-born Adriano and his Slovak orchestra seem entirely in sympathy with Honegger's language and no enthusiast for his work should be disappointed by this enterprising disc, particularly since the recording is atmospheric.

-- Christopher Headington, Gramophone

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Arthur Honegger (10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les Six, but his style is weightier and more solemn than that of his colleagues. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which was inspired by the sound of a steam locomotive. The principal elements of Honegger's style are: Bachian counterpoint, driving rhythms, melodic amplitude, highly coloristic harmonies, an impressionistic use of orchestral sonorities, and a concern for formal architecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Honegger

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Adriano (born July 10, 1944) is a Swiss-born conductor-composer. Adriano established himself as a specialist on Ottorino Respighi in the late 1970s, and has conducted many other recordings of obscure or neglected symphonic repertoire. He also initiated and recorded a series of fifteen CDs mainly of European film music composers, and created and directed a series of classical music videos. All of his recording projects (49 in total) have found wide recognition and his commitment is known to be uncompromising. Adriano has also composed songs, orchestral, chamber and incidental pieces.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/adriano-mn0001394381/biography
http://www.naxos.com/person/_Adriano_32351/32351.htm

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