Rugby – a musician's view

By Mrs Trellis
June 17 2016

Some of the Sale Sharks South Stand massive are off to see Wagner's Ring of the Niebelungen – four operas forming a cycle lasting about 24 hours. One Wagner & Sale Sharks fan described the music drama as not unlike the struggle in a RU match.

What some of you may not know is that there is a “classical” piece called “Rugby” - a tone poem for orchestra (Mouvement symphonique No. 2)  H. 67 by the Franco-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger composed in 1928 and takes a place among the composer's best-known orchestral works. Rugby is the second in a series of "mouvements symphoniques" that includes the popular Pacific 231 (1923) (a powerful express railway engine type known as a 4-6-2 in British nomenclature).

These short, intense works took their inspiration in part from purely practical concerns: Honegger observed that orchestras often tended to turn away from modern music, preferring to stick to time-tested repertoire; by expressing his ideas in the compact "mouvement symphonique" format, he hoped to give them greater potential for success among conductors and audiences alike.

Honegger took a special interest in things mechanical and sportive, and such themes found musical expression in the "mouvements symphoniques." Pacific 231 celebrates the power and excitement of locomotion, while Rugby colourfully evokes the movement and aggression of that sport. Still, Honegger was wary of music that required visual or symbolic aids and liked to think of Rugby as an absolute, rather than programmatic, work.

As the title suggests there is hardly a dull moment in Rugby. A rapid ascending figure in the violins heralds a flurry of activity. A fast triplet figure repeats numerous times until the trombone enters with a fragment of the "sport" motive. This theme, as it were, takes a while to develop more fully; like a ball being passed about, it restlessly moves from one instrumental grouping to another. A more lyrical line emerges from the violins, but is soon swept away in a flurry of activity.

A pointillistic section features the bassoons and basses. The lyrical melody makes another brief appearance, while the "sport" motive continues to blossom. A series of dissonant block chords provide the impression of a conclusion; however, a more consonant statement takes over, as though signalling a victory, and brings Rugby to a powerful and enthusiastic end.

Honegger was a member of “Les Six” - a group of modernist French composers active after WWI. He was born in Le Havre in 1892 to Swiss parents. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire during WWI and his concert-hall debut came in 1918.

The principal elements of Honegger's style are: Bachian counterpoint, driving rhythms, melodic amplitude, highly colouristic harmonies, an impressionistic use of orchestral sonorities, and a concern for formal architecture. His style is weightier and more solemn than that of his colleagues in Les Six. Far from reacting against German romanticism as the other members of Les Six did, Honegger's mature works show evidence of a distinct influence by it. Despite the differences in their styles, he and fellow Les Six member Darius Milhaud were close friends, having studied together at the Paris Conservatoire.