← Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
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Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the classical music podcast. My name is Joshua Wylerstein. I'm a conductor and I'm the music director of the Orchestra national de Lisle and the chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony. This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting ready to dive in to this amazing world of incredible music. Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors, Sylvia Kate, Cameron, Kate with a C, Ben Leon Gordon and all of my Patreon sponsors for making season 11 possible. If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com stickynotespodcast and if you are a fan of the show, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated. I was in Chicago last week with the amazing Chicago Symphony doing an American program with the music of Jesse Montgomery, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Duke Ellington, Boslav Martinu. It was obviously just such a special experience to conduct such a wonderful orchestra and to do such a varied program that really shows off this tapestry of American music that I love just so much. Really excited for today's episode on Honegar's Third Symphony, which was sponsored by Stefan and I wanted to also mention my Patreon page because we are in the midst of the 21 part series on Schubert's song cycle Di Chenellerin. It's been already really fun to have some conversations with people about the piece and each week we're putting up an episode just about 5, 10 minutes long about each song in Deesha Nellerin, so do check that out over@patreon.com StickyNotesPodcast Enjoy today's episode and thanks again to Stefan. In the aftermath of World War II, the Swiss composer Arthur Honager, who had been living in occupied Paris throughout the war, wrote a new symphony entitled Liturgical. He wrote an extended commentary on the piece which included these My intention in this work was to symbolize the reaction of modern man against the morass of barbarism, stupidity, suffering, machine mindedness and bureaucracy that has been besieging us for some years now. I have reproduced in musical terms the combat that is joined in man's heart between yielding to the blind forces that enclose him and his instinct for happiness, his love of peace, his apprehension of a divine refuge. My symphony is, if you like, a drama played out between three characters, whether real or symbolic, misery, happiness, and man. These are everlasting themes. I have tried to give them new life. It doesn't get much clearer than that in terms of a message behind a piece. And this Third Symphony reflects these feelings of Honinger in almost every note. This is not a symphony to be taken lightly, and over the course of its around 30 minute runtime, Honinger explores these ideas from three different perspectives, all centered around the Catholic liturgy. In this symphony, we find a tempt for understanding after the unthinkable had occurred, a passionate condemnation of war and a search for eternal peace. This is a symphony that in its heyday was fairly popular with recordings by two of the world's great conductors, Herbert von Carjan and Charles Munch, but it slowly faded from concert stages and is now very rarely performed. So thanks to Stefan for sponsoring this episode today on the Symphony, which was a discovery for me, and I think it will be a discovery for many of you as well. Today we'll talk about this detailed program that Honinger attached to the symphony, the liturgical connections in the piece, and of course, about the music itself. All this and more is coming right up on Sticky Notes. There's a fair number of you who probably have never heard of Honinger, so I wanted to give you a quick biographical background of him because I actually think it's very important for this piece. Honinger was raised as a Protestant, but became closer and closer to French Catholicism during his adulthood, which is reflected strongly in this piece. He was a member of Lesisses, a group of five French composers and one Swiss. They constituted a kind of neoclassical reaction against Wagnerism in music, which included a reaction, interestingly, against the music of Debussy as well. Lesis constituted Arthur Honager, Francois Poulenc, Germaine Taillefer, Georges Henrique, Darius Milot and Louis Dury. The six composers actually didn't have that much in common, which was put into very funny terms by the composer Poulenc, a member of lesis, who had a lot to say about the other composers in the the diversity of our music, of our tastes and distastes, precluded any common aesthetic. What could be more different than the music of Honager and Auric Milot admired Magnier I did not. Neither of us liked Florent Schmidt, whom Honeger respected. Arthur Honeger, on the other hand, had a deep seated scorn for Satie, whom Ulric Milot and I adored. And Milot said he chose six names absolutely arbitrarily, those of Ulric Duret, Honegger, Poulenc, Taillefer and myself, simply because we knew each other and we were pals and appeared on the same musical programs, no matter if our temperaments and personalities weren't at all the same. Ulrich and Poulenc followed ideas of Cocteau, Heiniger followed German Romanticism, and myself Mediterranean lyricism. Honinger definitely stood apart from Lesis in his musical outlook, claiming that he was much more serious than the other five. But his association with the group was an important part of establishing his name. He became a relatively successful and working composer up until World War II. He decided to stay in Paris during the war, even though he was Swiss and could have escaped to Switzerland. This is where things become a bit murky in terms of Honinger's activities during the war. Honeger was a committed pacifist and was certainly no admirer of the Nazi regime. Nevertheless, the Nazis essentially did not meddle with Honinger's activities as a composer, and in 1941 he was invited to Vienna for the International Mozart Festival organized by none other than Joseph Goebbels. Honinger wrote very enthusiastically about this experience and about the German music he heard there. He was also relatively close to the Vichy government, and in 1942 his 50th birthday was celebrated with a week of celebrations of his music, all officially sanctioned by the occupying Nazis. With all this said, Honecker had joined the Front National Desmusiciens, the resistance group of musicians and artists against the Nazis in 1941, though he was kicked out later for the actions I just detailed above. He also wrote a song of liberation in 1944 which made him seem like a card carrying member of the Resistance all along. But he lied about when he had actually written it, saying that he had written the song in 1942 when it was actually written in 1944. In the end, it seems that Honegar, while no lover of the Nazis by any means in his activities during the war, he at the same time tried to stay out of the way of them and was also an opportunist regarding his own works. One of the justifications for that 1941 trip to Vienna was a networking trip for him to have his music performed more. Honegger was a lifelong friend and supporter to Jewish musicians such as Milot, so there certainly doesn't seem to be any personal animus involved in Honager's wartime actions. But I think it does put the passionately anti war color of this symphony in a slightly different context, considering Conager's complicated behavior during the war. Let's go into the symphony now. As I mentioned, the Catholic liturgy is vital to understanding this piece. Each movement is titled with a different part of the Catholic liturgy. And the symphony itself, as I said, is titled Liturgical. The first movement is titled Dies Irae. The Dies Irae has been an obsession for composers ever since the medieval era. It was especially popular during the Romantic era and into the 20th century, with composers such as Mahler, Verdi, and especially Rachmaninoff prominently using the plain chant representing the Day of Wrath from the Catholic Requiem Mass. Here is that plain. There is a recording of Honager talking about this piece, though it's in French, so I'll do a quick translation after you hear a bit of it. What Honager is saying is that he doesn't actually use the plain chant in the movement, but instead the text is what he used. In this way, he distinguishes himself from, again, Rachmaninoff, who used the music as a sort of talisman in dozens of his works, but who, I think, was less interested in the text from a religious perspective. Honager, though, wants to use that text, the first lines of which are the Day of Wrath. That day will dissolve the world in ashes in order to portray a kind of devastation that is palpable from the first notes of the piece. The symphony begins with a kind of shudder and quickly explodes into an expression of terror and rage that is shocking and arresting. It continues to escalate throughout the opening. Honinger described the movement this way in the Dies Irae. I was concerned with depicting human terror in the face of divine anger, with expressing the brutal, unchanging feelings of oppressed peoples delivered to the whims of fate and seeking in vain to escape the cruel snares of destiny. I think the strongest impression one gets in this opening is of that unchanging feeling. The harmony keeps escalating, yet the fundamental sound of the orchestra, the marked military esque rhythms in the trumpets, the violent interjections of the strings and the relentless almost screams of the winds begin to feel almost oppressive in themselves, which I think is exactly what Honager is going for. This will escalate until a breakthrough, but a breakthrough that provides no comfort. Instead, the strings take over the marked military like lines, while the low brass bulldoze their way through the orchestra. Within 30 seconds of this piece beginning, we are thrust into a terrifying and merciless world. This culminates with a remarkable moment where the marked rhythm is played by the upper winds in brass, while the piano and strings slither up a chromatic scale. This is deeply unsettling,
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Sam.
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The strings now begin an ostinato that might remind you of some of Shostakovich's most violent music. And what happens above is variations of what we heard violent interjections from all over the orchestra, marked rhythms and a sense of uncompromising brutality.
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A lyrical melody finally begins, but it is constantly attacked by short and violent notes in the brass, even as the theme is passed between the upper winds and strings. The theme itself is expressive but highly dissonant. It's like a distorted version of a lyrical theme, one that is infected by all the violence around. This first section ends with a brilliant and unusual color from as the music finally dies down after nearly three minutes of uninterrupted fortissimo, the French horns are heard playing tremolo fast repeated notes. This is the color that is usually used for the strings, but with the horns it creates a kind of blur to the sound and also a feeling of tremendous uncertainty. I've never quite heard a color like it. The ideas of the opening minutes of the movement are thrown around in fragments, including a stereotypical march rhythm played by a snare drum.
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The lyrical theme makes its return now not unsettled, but truly screaming. This leads to a tremendous climax with a violin lament and horn countermelody that sounds like a distorted version of the Dies Irae music itself. All the while, as it has for the whole movement, those violent, military esque, but also in a distorted way rhythms continue.
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Sam. It.
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Honager revels in unusual instrumental combinations or in taking combinations that seem to be quite typical and turning them on their heads. And here's an example of the cellos play another one of these angular, dissonant, lyrical themes, while the trombones, a natural partner of the cello, well, they don't support them at all. Instead they violently interject words I know I've been using a lot so far and seem to be trying to destroy the theme itself. And then again, on the unusual side of things, Honager now brings the strings back with those punishing Shostakovich like ostinatos, while the trombones take over that big tune. But it is no longer even lyrical. It is just a wall of sound and agony. But just like that, this relentless seven minute explosion starts to dissipate. And with echoes of the shutters of the beginning, it ends not with a bang, but with a whisper. That's the first movement of this around half hour long symphony in three movements. It is only seven minutes long, but it is truly some of the most intense, gut wrenching, violent, brutal, terrifying music I've heard in a long time in performances of this piece that I've watched online since I've never had the experience of hearing it live myself. The audience reaction after this movement is quite profound. Normally, at the end of a movement, audiences cough a bit, shuffle, flip through their programs, whisper, and generally give the impression of just waiting for the next movement to begin. In the case of this movement, there is silence, no coughing, not even movement. It's almost like the audience is in a state of shock, which is exactly how I was when I first heard this movement. Left in this state, Honager had an incredibly difficult time figuring out how to move on. This is what he wrote about the second the sorrowful meditation of humankind abandoned by God, a meditation that is already a prayer. What tribulation this movement cost me. How hard is it, too, to put a prayer without hope into human mouths? Toward the end of this movement, I have repeated the bird theme more the promise of peace amid disaster. This bird theme that Honager mentioned sent me down a major rabbit hole. He mentions that the bird theme appears at the end of the first movement as well, but it's quite distorted from its original use. The bird theme comes from Honegger's absolutely surreal Mystere Lyrique, or sung mystery play, Joan of Arc at the Stake. Written speakers, soloists, choir, children's choir and orchestra. It's one of the most fascinating pieces of the 20th century. And at one moment in the piece, this text, one thinks everything is finished. But then a robin begins to sing. Here's the music at that moment. Apparently it corresponds to this moment in the first movement of the symphony. This is quite a stretch, and it's definitely not something I would have picked up on unless it was explicitly pointed out to me. But as we move into the second movement, things begin to get a bit clearer. The second movement is the longest movement of the symphony, and its title comes from Psalm 130, the same text that inspired Lili Boulanger's Psalm 30 from an episode earlier this year. The title of the movement is out of the Depths have I Cried. And the movement begins in those depths, as if in shock. From the violence of the first movement. In this movement, we can hear a clear reference to that Robin theme from Joan of Arc. It is played in a brilliant orchestration by cellos playing near the very top of their registers, creating a kind of choked sound. But this is what Honegger is going for. It's as if the cellos can barely speak or sing, but they do it anyway. The text of the Robin song is there is hope, which is the strongest. This is one of the first, almost purely tonal moments of the piece, so it is extremely stark. The Mood of this opening part of the movement is meditative but strained, as if it can't quite believe what it is saying. Dissonances creep in here and there, but there is also a strong will to keep going. The gentle flow of this movement is its secret, I think, and the atmosphere is profoundly moving and tender at the same time. One of the most beautiful moments of the movement comes a bit later on. The general course of the movement so far has been a clear split between the strings and the winds, with both groups taking over for one another with the main voice. But finally, Hodgger combines them, but not in a climactic way. Instead, he has a muted trumpet gently float over a beautiful collection of chords in the strings. It's another moment of unique orchestration on Honager's part, and it is my favorite part of the whole piece so far. Structurally, this movement, frankly wanders. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think it fits in with the idea of this prayer that sort of doesn't know where to go. As Honager said, how hard is it, too, to put a prayer without hope into human mouths? There's a lost quality to this music that I don't think Honager would have denied. So structurally, there's not a lot to hold onto. The way to listen to this movement, I think, is to not look for those typical structural frameworks that bind together a symphonic movement. Instead, allow yourself to be taken on this journey of reflection, loss, and perhaps some hope. But with an accent in the brass, things change markedly. It's like the lights have suddenly been switched off and the music suddenly returns to the depths from which it began. Any hope that we had earlier on in the movement is extinguished. I would call this the second section of the movement. A new theme begins, a lamenting, sighing, crying theme, first played by muted trumpets, but then taken over by the violas and cellos at the top of their register. This is a theme full of pain, a reflection of the violence of the first movement and its aftermath. This leads us to the first climactic moment of the movement, nearly halfway through its 14 minute duration. The pain and agony escalates as Honinger adds more and more to his orchestra, which he has carefully kept separated and paced so far. If I could put a word to this music, it feels like it cannot stop asking why. But actually there are words to this music, even though, of course, they aren't spoken. The rhythm of the melodic line here corresponds exactly to the first words of the De profundis.
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De profundis clamavi ad text.
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Honager clearly wanted there to be a reference here, even if it flies over most of our heads. It leads us to a tremendous cry from the orchestra, which almost immediately begins to dissipate and remarkably, to find itself in a similar harmonic world as the beginning of the movement. As if this desperation created hope in itself.
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As this music from the first section begins to wander again through the wreckage of the first movement music. Honager references that De Profundis rhythm several times. But this time it doesn't lead to another huge lament. Instead, just a more reflection. I wouldn't call this music peaceful, but it certainly wishes that it could be. There is one more horrifying moment in this movement. We have been lulled into a false sense of security. After all, after the first outburst of pain, it resolved back to hopeful music. But now the military snare drum returns from the first movement, and the De Profundis music leads us to grotesquely dissonant harmonies and cries of pain. It seems we are about to arrive at another terrifying climax.
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But no. Instead of the bulldozers of war returning, Honager switches gears and returns to his hopeful music. But this time the harmonies are a bit less settled than before. This is music that still wants to be peaceful, but it's having a harder time than before. I find the atmosphere in this movement to be quite remarkable. It's peaceful and yet deeply unsettling at the same time. To be able to portray such complex emotions and music is a true skill, and Honegger absolutely does it.
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Here.
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A brass chorale begins the coda of the movement. It feels as if the story is coming to an end, unresolved, as of course it has to be. But then the bird theme returns much more obviously than before, played by the flute and over chords in the lowest instruments in the orchestra. And a wonderfully and mysteriously unsettled E major chord. The movement comes to a close. That prayer is over, and we certainly don't know if any of it has been heard.
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Honager described the third movement, titled Donna nobis pacem this There is nothing so stupid as barbarism unleashed on a civilization. What I wanted to express at the beginning of the third movement was precisely this increase in collective stupidity. It's the march of the robots against the bodies and souls of men. I'll leave the rest of the description of the movement until later, because this third movement is split up into two distinct sections. The Honager passage I just read to you is his description of the first part of the movement. This is a dangerous idea to try to Portray something so literally, especially something that is intentionally musically poor. That's a huge risk to take with your audience. But listen to how Honaker does it. Somehow. There is a massive amount of tension in this robotic music. Perhaps it's that we've had the context of the terror of the first movement and the unsettled hope of the second that influences us. But I hear something quite ominous in this music, as if the robots are on their way in and nothing can stop them. I can't quite help thinking about AI as I listen to this music. The main theme of the movement now appears in the French horns, and it is just as banal as you would expect and hope it to be. It is imposing, brash, and goes absolutely nowhere. A perfect description for this barbarism. Honager speaks of. A series of horror. Chords and glissandi now appear, adding to the grotesquery that we are hearing. This is really shocking music. It's absolutely uncompromising in the best possible way. The strings enter to try to add some humanity to these proceedings with a huge theme marked to be played expressively. But we can't quite help getting the feeling that this is all in vain. One gets the impression that the robot completely ignored this human theme and just continue marching forward. The low brass now fulfill the destiny of that rhythm at the beginning with music that John Williams would love. There's definitely a bit of the empire in this music. The strings again cry out, but they are almost literally being hammered into submission. At this point. I'm going to stop here to say that if you're still with me, I can fully accept that this hasn't been any kind of relaxing or even beautiful experience listening to this music. I'll talk a bit more about that at the end of the show because I think this relentlessness has a bit to do with the piece's lack of popularity these days. Is over the top of this cry of lament from the strings, though the horn theme comes pounding in louder than ever. The first section culminates with the trumpets playing Fortissimo Flutter Tongue, which sounds alarmingly like a machine gun. The strings, now fully infected with the robotic barbarism, now play violent 16th notes and the snare drum returns with its merciless march rhythm. We are fully into the sound world of the first movement now. Now with those hopeful prayers from the second movement completely forgotten. And finally the tempo grinds to practically a halt. But now a feeling of rebellion surfaces among the victims. The revolt takes shape and grows suddenly an immense cl. Listen again to the rhythm of that climactic moment, and then try to add the words, do na no bis PA chem. That's exactly what happens here. The crowd screams, give us peace. And after that catastrophic collapse, something remarkable happens. And then, as though the cup of suffering were full, the clouds part. And amid the glory of the rising sun, for the last time, the bird sings. In this way, the bird hovers over the symphony, just as once the dove hovered over the immensity of the waters.
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It.
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Honegger writes this section in F sharp major, a key associated with heaven due to its extremely bright color. The music here is hypertonal, soft, gentle and profoundly radiant.
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Sam.
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The bird now returns, though the harmonies become less stable than they just were. It is accompanied by a solo cello, which seems to be trying to reach out, as if it is just a bit too far away way. It also is playing the De Profundis motive from the second movement, coming out of the depths to try to reach into the sky.
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A solo violin then enters, bringing us ever closer. We end the piece in C sharp major, the brightest possible key. The sun has risen again. This piece was quite a discovery for me. It got me thinking, why did I never know about it before? Why is it almost never played? Well, I think there are a few reasons for this. One, Honinger's murky behavior during World War II, which I talked about earlier. I don't really know what to think about this, and I'm not a historian. It's clear from this piece that Honager abhorred war, but he didn't seem to be willing to take many risks to either join the French Resistance or to help out those who were being rounded up. Well, this makes him like millions of other people who did that. So I don't want to act like Honager is especially guilty, but it's a data point when listening to this music. Two, the relentless nature of this music. You might be asking. This symphony is only 30ish minutes long, and we listen to hour long Shostakovich symphonies, which are brutal and violent too. So what's the difference? Well, Shostakovich's music, just as an example, is most of the time less dissonant. Even in its most violent moments, it also retains a level of humanity that this piece very intentionally thrusts aside. I think that this piece actually might just be a bit too much for many audiences, and perhaps this explains its lack of popularity. And three, the most shallow reason of all, this piece ends quietly. This has doomed some big symphonies. And if you don't believe me, check out the performance numbers of Brahms Third Symphony versus the other ones. So those are my three theories, but I'm curious to hear yours as well. In the end, I now am left to contemplate whether this is a symphony that I want to perform, and I think the answer is yes, though the context for it would have to be right. This is a remarkable time capsule of one of the darkest times in human history, and a piece that absolutely deserves to be heard more often. I want to thank Stefan for introducing me to this piece through a Patreon sponsorship, and thank you so much for listening to Sticky Notes today. We'll have some more exciting stuff for you in a couple of weeks, so don't miss our next episode. This episode was mixed by Charlie Kozella, so a huge thank you to him. If you like what you heard today, please feel free to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps the show gain more visibility. And please send any questions to stickynotespodcastmail. And if you'd like to support the podcast monetarily, just head over to patreon.com stickynotespodcast thanks and I'll talk to you again after a while.