Symphony No. 3

Although Swiss by birth and citizenship, Honegger lived and worked for most of his life in Paris. During the Second World War, the German occupation meant that he was unable to leave the city. After its liberation and a holiday visit to Switzerland, he began work on a new symphony that would commemorate the war years and their terrible human cost. He completed Symphonie liturgique in 1946, and the first performance, conducted by Charles Munch, was given in Zurich in August that year. Honegger’s “liturgical symphony” is not based directly on the liturgy of the Catholic church; instead, each of the three movements is headed with a Latin phrase taken from this, relating to the broader human and emotional issues involved. Honegger described the result as a drama enacted “between three characters, real or symbolic: misery, happiness and man”. Although the music uses the tonal idiom which Honegger always favoured, the first movement, “Dies irae” (“Day of Wrath”), also unleashes extreme dissonance to portray war’s destructive horrors. “De profundis clamavi” (“Out of the depths, I called”) then searches out the emotions of human suffering and underlying hope, in long melodic lines of great poignancy. Finally, in “Dona nobis pacem” (“Give us peace”), the music’s relentless march-rhythms build to a ferocious climax before at last disintegrating; and the symphony’s closing stages sing serenely of the prospect of peace, beautifully portrayed by high-soaring solos for violin and piccolo.