Honegger: Awesome

I think you all are already aware of my longstanding fanaticism for Arthur Honegger's orchestral music. I would just like to note that his Symphonie Liturgique is, in fact, totally incredible and also a good listen while you're attached to a computer during work. Maybe just because it was raining like all holy hell today, but the ominous, bluesy tread of that third movement really touched a nerve. Ahhhh.

In about the middle of the slow movement, Honegger builds up into an agitated climax that sounds more like genuine, wailing song than any other orchestral music I know; it crests and then sublimes rapidly into a few measures of ethereal chorale for the violins waaaaaayy up high. This is amazing. And the sad, transcended quiet end of the symphony: a lonely flute twirling around a minor-key lick while ambiguously major-key orchestal harmonies drift off into some or another sunset.

I can never entirely decide that it's OK to let myself just groove along to something written in response to the terror and devastation of World War II; but between the Liturgique, the Dies Irae section of Britten's War Requiem, and Shostakovich's Seventh, I don't think I can stave off the guilty pleasure. Something about angry, fully orchestrated dissonance in a fast tempo just triggers the adrenaline & kicks me up into a happier gear.