Harry Halbreich

[1][2][3] The son of a Jewish-German father and English mother, Halbreich studied with Arthur Honegger and later with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining a first prize in analysis and history of music.

[3] He was known for a number of books, articles and studies on modern and contemporary music, including monograph works on Olivier Messiaen, Claude Debussy, Arthur Honegger, and Bohuslav Martinů.

He assisted Nicolas Bacri in orchestrating Honegger's opera, La morte de Sainte Alméenne, originally written in 1918 for voice and piano; the new version was premiered in Utrecht on 26 November 2005, on the 50th anniversary of the composer's death.

He has also written on composers of the past, including Edgard Varèse, George Enescu, Maurice Ohana as well as Johann Sebastian Bach, Francisco Guerrero, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean Marie Leclair, Jan Dismas Zelenka,  Ludwig van Beethoven.

[3] He had a broad interest in culture, and while a convert to Catholicism, he was open to, and expressed deep knowledge of eastern spiritual history alongside Christian mystics.