• Full Text
• Scholarly Journal

Arthur Honegger's Three Versions of "King David"

Hines, Robert S

.  The Choral Journal

; Oklahoma City Vol. 46, Iss. 8,  (Feb 2006): 32-39.

Robert S Hines

p.32

Musicians are often unaware that there are three extant versions of Arthur Honegger's Le Roi David [ King David ]. The first version was for the four-hour, staged drama by the playwright/producer René Morax, for whom Honeggercomposed music to highlight specific events in David's life. A second version was Morax's reduction for concert-hall performance in which he substituted narrator(s) for the cast, reduced the running time to a little over an hour, but retained all the original music with its scoring for seventeen instruments, soloists, and chorus. The third version, also for concert-hall use, was the same as the second, except the composer revised the instrumentation for large orchestra. Honegger'stitle for this final version was Le Roi David [ King David ], Psaume symphonique en trois parties d'après le drame de René Morax [Symphonic Psalm in three parts after the drama by René Morax].

The purpose of this article is to remind musicians of the suitability of the second version for performance by college, community, and church groups. This revision is ideal for organizations with limited financial resources or for those with instrumental programs that are unable to mount a performance with large orchestra.

The three versions of Le Roi David came about in the early 1920s. A central figure was the Swiss dramatist/producer René Morax (1873-1963). In 1903, he and his brother Jean, a scenic designer, founded the Théâre du Jorat in the village of Mézières. However, it was not until the summer of 1907 that public performances were initiated on Saturdays and Sundays. An impressive repertoire of music dramas was produced during the pre-World War I period, productions that...