Dear person who encourages Swiss composer (8)

'composer' is the definition.
(I know that Honegger is a composer)

'dear person who encourages swiss' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'dear' could be 'hon' (both are terms of endearment) and 'hon' is located in the answer.
'person' could be 'egg' (as in 'a bad egg') and 'egg' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'er' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?