Let’s try something new today. My flu seems to be at its end, and I’m feeling more capable of engaging more than I have been. I got Arthur Honegger in my mind. Of all Les Six, he is probably the most difficult to listen to. But today, we will listen to something that I consider quite accessible: Pacific 231.

According to Honegger, the idea was create a piece of music that got more and more momentum as its pace slowed. But he named it after a train, and Honegger was known to have a thing about trains. So in 1949, the film theorist Jean Mitry created a film to go along with it. And that is what we listen to and watch this morning: