utubesucks2003's video: Arthur Honegger - Le D serteur Je t attendrai - Fragment Symphonique

Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava) Recorded in February, 1993 Cues composed for the film in 1939 Album: Honegger/Marco Polo Film Music Classics Film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037370/ Liner Notes: Honegger wrote music for half a dozen French war films, examples of which include Cessez le feu, Mademoiselle Docteur, L'Equipage, Marthe Richard, Passeurs d'hommes and Les Démons de l'aube. Le Déserteur is now largely consigned to the archives or to the museum of the cinema, occasionally shown late at night on French television in programmes designed for those with a special interest in early films. Of the 23 music cues of Le Déserteur only seven were by Honegger. Composers like Henri Verdun and Georges Van Parys also contributed to the score, with vocal numbers from the popular domain. Honegger's score was conceived for an orchestra the size of that required for Crime et Châtiment, without the Ondes Martenot, but with the usual alto saxophone and piano. The present symphonic fragment is a combination of three different cues, slightly arranged to allow continuity. It is interesting to note that the composer had conceived two further cues, four to six bars in length, to be repeated ad libitum, according to the length required to match the screen image, with each designed for a seperate shooting position, interior and exterior. Honegger's treatment of musical cells, often developed into motoric ostinati, as evident in the opening string accompaniment, anticipates in some measure the minimalist music of our own time. The same technique is even more apparent in the huge score written in 1935 for Der Dämon des Himalaya. Le Déserteur, a feature film by Léonide Moguy released in 1939, recounts an episode in the First World War, in which a soldier, played by Jean-Pierre Aumont, deserts his troop in order to visit his parents and fiancée.