Pacific 231

“I have always loved locomotives passionately,” Arthur Honegger once commented. “For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.” Honegger’s fascination with railroad engines was immortalised in his 1923 orchestral piece Pacific 231, where the number refers to a particular type of axle arrangement on a high-speed locomotive. While Honegger claimed that his aim in Pacific 231 was not to slavishly imitate train sounds, they feature from the outset. The metallic shimmer of cymbals suggests a head of steam building, while flutter-tonguing trumpets signal the engine’s moving parts creaking into motion. Lower string lunges and snorting trombones evoke the gathering momentum of “a 300-ton train hurtling through the night at 120 km an hour”. This powerfully orchestrated, seven-minute journey eventually comes to a crunching conclusion, as Honegger applies the brakes and brings the locomotive to a gradual halt.