The idea for an oratorio concerning Joan of Arc came from the excellent (and extremely wealthy) actress, Ida Rubinstein, in 1933. She believed she might be able to play the lead role, but naturally, without singing – this was not how she earned her living (when she was older, she regarded herself as an artist of “word and motion.”) She commissioned Paul Claudel and Honegger to create a new work. Initially, Claudel was not enthusiastic. After all, it is hard to say anything about an “official heroine.” Any deviation from the clichéd accustomed version of the story was liable to provoke outrage. The reformulation of clichés certainly did hold an appeal to a true artist though. In the end, the poet had a brainwave. He decided to tell the story in reverse order. In the beginning we see Joan being burned at the stake. Friar Dominic enters (the symbolic figure of the inquisition) and opens before her “the book” in which Joan's story has been written. First we see what immediately preceded this – the condemnation. Then we see the beginning of the trial. Claudel characterises the court as a herd of animals. The basic idea for this came from a play on words: the historical bishop's name was Pierre Cauchon, whose name sounds like the word for “pig” in French. The jury are sheep, the clerk a donkey. For this music, Honegger uses a famous medieval melody, called the “donkey song.” After the brief scene with Joan and Friar Dominic, we recede still further into the past: a card game reviews the political intrigues through which Joan finally ends up in the hands of the enemy. In the next scene, Joan crowns Charles the Seventh. Thus, South and East France can finally be united. We then recede still further into the past – to Joan's childhood. This is the moment when Joan has to sing a brief children's song. The end of the oratorio sees Joan again at the stake, suffering but dying as a transfigured heroine.

There is no denying that the libretto is strongly nationalistic. In the mid 1930's, when Claudel penned the work, the political situation made this kind of Gallic nationalism understandable. The figure of Joan becomes a symbol of resistance. This is how Swiss born Honegger also felt about things. He made good use of his experiences writing film music, and produced some truly expressive, popular and simple music. He uses acerbic neo-classical details, and even the Ondes Martenot instrument (invented in 1928 and made world famous by the later composer, Messaien) – in the coronation scene, he even weaves French folk song into the musical texture.

The work was premiered in 1938 in Basel. Ida Rubinstein was Joan, and the conductor was Paul Sacher, who was one of the most generous patrons of new music in the Twentieth Century, having commissioned many works from (amongst many others) Bartók.