Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). Swiss composer

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, and a member of Les Six, a group of composers who lived and worked in Paris during the 1920s. He studied at the conservatoires of Zurich and Paris, and his music from the 1920s, such as the dramatic Psalm Le Roi David (1921), saw him combining styles of music, from Gregorian Chant to Baroque, whilst utilising jazz harmony. His 1922 ballet The Skating Rink, created for Jean Börlin and the Ballets Suédois, was particularly angular, with lurching and bulging chords mimicking the angularity of the dancers’ movements. The Ballet had been inspired by a Charlie Chaplin film of 1916, The Rink, and this, in combination with the dancers’ representation of characters of Parisian society creates a cultural time capsule in its short 20 minutes. His French avant-garde style can also be seen in his 1934 ballet Sémiramis. The music for Andrée Howard’s ballet Lady into Fox was an arrangement of Honegger’s Sept pièces brèves and Toccata et variations by Charles Lynch.