Category: 4.0

I have had a passionate love for locomotives. To me they are living things and I love them. That which I have endeavored to portray in Pacific 231 is not an imitation of the noises of the locomotive, but the translation into music of the visual impressions and the physical sensation of it… Its point of departure is an objective contemplation: the quiet respiration of an engine in repose; the effort in starting; the progressive increase of speed, passing from the static to the dynamic state of an engine of 300 tons driven in the night at a speed of 120 miles per hour. As a subject I have taken an engine of the Pacific type, known as 2-3-1, an engine for heavy trains of high speed…

-Arthur Honegger ~1923