Concerto da camera (H 196) is a concerto in three movements for the unusual combination of flute, English horn, and string orchestra written by Arthur Honegger late in his career in 1948. While Honegger was on tour in the United States, the American art patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned him in July 1947 to write a piece, either a sonata or a chamber work, that would treat the English horn as a soloist. As soloist she had in mind Louis Speyer, English horn player of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to whom the piece is dedicated. Honegger accepted the commission in early August, preferring a concerto form. However, just then he started to suffer for the first time from angina, a condition that would eventually end his career. On August 21 the angina led to coronary thrombosis, an