Le Roi David

For other uses, see King David (disambiguation).
Le Roi David
Psaume symphonique en trois parties
Oratorio by Arthur Honegger
The composer in 1928
EnglishKing David / Symphonic Psalm in Three Parts
Textby René Morax
LanguageFrench
Based onKing David's life
Performed12 May 1938 (1938-05-12): Basel
Movements27
Scoring

Le Roi David was composed in Mézières, Switzerland, in 1921 by Arthur Honegger, as incidental music for a play in French by René Morax. It was called a dramatic psalm, but has also been performed as oratorio, without staging. The plot, based on biblical narration, tells the story of King David, first a shepherd boy, his victories in battle, relationship to Saul, rise to power, adultery, mourning of his son's death, and finally his own death.[1] The work has 27 musical movements consisting of voice solos, choruses, and instrumental interludes. A narrator unifies the work by providing spoken narration of the story of King David.

Arthur Honegger was commissioned to write incidental music to accompany René Morax's play Le Roi David in 1921. The commission outlined that the work was to be performed by 100 singers and seventeen instruments. Honegger struggled with these limited resources, and wrote to Igor Stravinsky for advice. [2] Stravinsky advised him to think as if he had purposefully chosen that instrumentation, and compose as such.[2][3] Honegger had a nearly impossible deadline of 2 months to complete the work. This short deadline made it necessary for him to write the movements of this 27 movement work out of order. First, he wrote the choral and solo voice parts to allow the music to be copied and rehearsed. Honegger wrote the orchestration for the entire work last.[3] He completed his composition on May 20, 1921, and was rewarded with much acclaim at the premiere on June 11, 1921. In 1923 he combined Morax's narrative with his music and created a "symphonic psalm", the form that is familiar today, and titled his work Le Roi David.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Letellier was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Medawar, Joanna (1998). A performance guide to Arthur Honegger's King David (doctoral thesis). University of Southern California. OCLC 51474128.
  3. ^ a b Hines, Robert S. (February 2006). "Arthur Honegger's Three Versions of King David". The Choral Journal. 46 (8): 32–39.
  4. ^ "Le Roi David" by Steve Schwartz (1995), Classical Net