Turangalîla-Symphonie Explained

Turangalîla-Symphonie
Subtitle:for piano, ondes martenot, and orchestra
Composer:Olivier Messiaen
Other Name:Turangalîla
Catalogue:Simeone: I/29
Period:20th-century music
Genre:Symphony
Client:Serge Koussevitsky
Based On:Tristan and Iseult
Composed:17 July 1946 – 29 November 1948 (rev. 1990)
Dedication:In memoriam Natalie Koussevitsky (manuscript; published copy bears no dedication)
Publisher:Durand
Duration:about 80 minutes
Movements:Ten
Scoring:Large orchestra, Ondes Martenot, and piano
Premiere Date:2 December 1949
Premiere Conductor:Leonard Bernstein
Premiere Location:Boston
Premiere Performers:Boston Symphony Orchestra
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Ginette Martenot (ondes Martenot)

The Turangalîla-Symphonie is the only symphony by Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992). It was written for an orchestra of large forces from 1946 to 1948 on a commission by Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Along with the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, the symphony is one of the composer's most notable works.

Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere in Boston on 2 December 1949, followed by the New York premiere on 10 December.[1] The December 1949 performances included an intermission after the fifth movement; it was the only work on the program. The commission did not specify the duration, orchestral requirements or style of the piece, leaving the decisions to the composer.[2] Koussevitzky was scheduled to conduct the premiere, but fell ill, and the task fell to Bernstein,[3] who never conducted the work again.[4] Yvonne Loriod, who later became Messiaen's second wife, was the piano soloist, and Ginette Martenot played the ondes Martenot for the first and several subsequent performances.

From 1953 on, Yvonne's sister Jeanne Loriod was the ondes Martenot player in many performances and recordings.[5]

Concept

While most of Messiaen's compositions are religious in inspiration, at the time of writing the symphony the composer was fascinated by the myth of Tristan and Isolde, and the Turangalîla Symphony forms the central work in his trilogy of compositions concerned with the themes of romantic love and death; the other pieces are Harawi for piano with soprano and Cinq rechants for unaccompanied trios of soprani, alti, tenors, and basses.[6] It is considered one of the greatest musical compositions of the 20th century; being described by its commissioner as 'the most important piece of classical music ever written since Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring'. A typical performance runs around 80 minutes in length. Messiaen famously summarised the entire symphony as being "a love song; a hymn to joy."

Although the concept of a rhythmic scale corresponding to the chromatic scale of pitches occurs in Messiaen's work as early as 1944, in the Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (a work Messiaen quotes in the fourth movement), the arrangement of such durations into a fixed series occurs for the first time in the opening episode of the movement "Turangalîla 2" in this work, and is an important historical step toward the concept of integral serialism.[7]

The title of the work, and those of its movements, were a late addition to the project, chosen after Messiaen made a list of the work's movements. He described the name in his letters from 1947 to 1948.[8] He derived the title from two Sanskrit words, and , which he explained thus:[9]

"Lîla" literally means play – but play in the sense of the divine action upon the cosmos, the play of creation, destruction, reconstruction, the play of life and death. "Lila" is also love. "Turanga": this is the time that runs, like a galloping horse; this is time that flows, like sand in an hourglass. "Turanga" is movement and rhythm. "Turangalîla" therefore means all at once love song, hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.

Messiaen described the joy of Turangalîla as "superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited".[9] He revised the work's orchestration in 1990.[5]

Instrumentation

The piece is scored for a large orchestra with a particularly large percussion section:

Solo piano

Ondes MartenotWoodwinds

1 piccolo

2 flutes

2 oboes

1 cor anglais

2 clarinets

1 bass clarinet

3 bassoonsBrass

4 horns

3 trumpets

1 trumpet in D

1 cornet

3 trombones

1 tuba

Percussion (12 percussionists[5])

Vibraphone

Keyed or mallet glockenspiels

Triangle

Temple blocks

Wood block

Cymbals (crash and three types of suspended)

Tam tam

Tambourine

Maracas

Snare drum

Provençal tabor

Bass drum

Tubular bells

Celesta

Strings

32 violins

14 violas

12 cellos

10 double bassesThe demanding piano part includes several solo cadenzas.

Cyclic themes

In writing about the work, Messiaen identified four cyclic themes that reappear throughout; there are other themes specific to each movement.[9] In the score the themes are numbered, but in later writings he gave them names to make them easier to identify, without intending the names to have any other, literary meaning.

Introduced by trombones and tuba, this is the statue theme. According to Messiaen, it has the oppressive, terrible brutality of ancient Mexican monuments, and has always evoked dread. It is played in a slow tempo, pesante.
This is the flower theme. It is introduced by two clarinets.
This theme, the most important of all, is the love theme. It appears in many different guises, from hushed strings in movement 6, to a full orchestral treatment in the climax of the finale.
A simple chain of chords, used to produce opposing chords on the piano and crossing counterpoints in the orchestra.

Structure

The work is in ten movements, linked by the common themes identified above, and other musical ideas:

The composer's initial plan was for a symphony in the conventional four movements, which eventually became numbers 1, 4, 6, and 10. Next, he added the three Turangalîla movements, which he originally called tâlas, a reference to the use of rhythm in Indian classical music. Finally, the 2nd, 5th, and 8th movements were inserted.[10] Early on, Messiaen authorized separate performance of movements 3, 4, and 5, as Three tâlas (not to be confused with the original use of the term for the three Turangalîla movements), but later came to disapprove of the performance of extracts.

Recordings

No recording was made of the world premiere, and Bernstein himself did not return to the work in either concert performance or in the recording studio, but a recording exists of part of the rehearsals for the premiere in Boston, featuring the fifth and sixth movements.

It was released in 2013 as part of a set of previously unissued Bernstein recordings (Music and Arts WHRA-6048).

Recordings of Turangalîla-Symphonie
Conductor Orchestra Piano Ondes martenot Label Catalog data-sort-type="date"Released !Format Notes
data-sort-value="Désormière"data-sort-value="Loriod"data-sort-value="Martenot"1950 Live recording on 25 July 1950, of the European premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival
data-sort-value="Rosbaud"data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Martenot"Ginette Martenot WER 6401-2 1992 Recorded 23/24 December, 1951
data-sort-value="Leroux"Orchestre National de la RTF data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Loriod"Vega/Accord
  • VAL 127
  • Vega C 30 ST 20033/4
  • Vega C 35 X 940
1962
  • Box set
  • 10-inch LPs
  •  
Recording supervised by Messiaen in 1961. Released in France
data-sort-value="Fournet"data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Loriod"Jeanne Loriod Q Disc 1967 Live
data-sort-value="Ozawa"data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Loriod"Jeanne Loriod [11] 1967
data-sort-value="Previn"data-sort-value="Béroff"data-sort-value="Loriod"Jeanne Loriod SLS 5117 1977 Double LP
data-sort-value="Defroment"data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Loriod"Jeanne Loriod 1982 Live
data-sort-value="Salonen"data-sort-value="Crossley"data-sort-value="Murail"
  • I2M 42126
  • G010003836824C
data-sort-value="1985"
  • 1985
  • 2018
  • 2 LPs
  • CD
data-sort-value="Rattle"data-sort-value="Donohoe"data-sort-value="Murail"Tristan Murail EMI
  • EX270468-3
  • 747463-8
1986
  • LP
  • CD
data-sort-value="Chung"data-sort-value="Loriod"Yvonne Loriod data-sort-value="Loriod"Jeanne Loriod 0289 431 7812 9 1990 CD First recording of the revised version, supervised by Messiaen.
data-sort-value="Chailly"data-sort-value="Thibaudet"data-sort-value="Harada"Takashi Harada
    • London 436 626–2
data-sort-value="1993"
  • 1993
  • 2012
  •  
  • CD
data-sort-value="Janowski"data-sort-value="Muraro"data-sort-value="Hartmann-Claverie"Valérie Hartmann-Claverie RCA 09026 61520 2 1992
data-sort-value="Tortelier"data-sort-value="Shelley"data-sort-value="Hartmann-Claverie"Valérie Hartmann-Claverie CHAN9678 1998 CD
data-sort-value="Wit"data-sort-value="Weigel"data-sort-value="Bloch"8.554478-9 data-sort-value="1998-12-01"December 1998 CD
data-sort-value="Vonk"Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra data-sort-value="Ohlsson"data-sort-value="Laurendeau"Jean Laurendeau 1999 Live
data-sort-value="Nagano"data-sort-value="Aimard"data-sort-value="Kim"Dominique Kim 8573-82043-2 2001 CD Live recording in March 2000 in Berlin
data-sort-value="Iimori"data-sort-value="Fujii"Kazuoki Fujii data-sort-value="Harada"Takashi Harada 2001
data-sort-value="Numajiri"data-sort-value="Nodaira"Ichiro Nodaira data-sort-value="Harada"Takashi Harada Exton 2002 Live
data-sort-value="Fischer"data-sort-value="Muraro"Roger Muraro data-sort-value="Tchamkerten"Jacques Tchamkerten 2006 Live
data-sort-value="Iwaki"data-sort-value="Kimura"Kaori Kimura data-sort-value="Harada"Takashi Harada 4812873 2007 CD Live recording in 1985. Re-released 2007.
data-sort-value="Cambreling"SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg data-sort-value="Muraro"Roger Muraro data-sort-value="Hartmann-Claverie"Valérie Hartmann-Claverie 93.225 2008 CD
data-sort-value="Mena"data-sort-value="Osborne"data-sort-value="Millar"Cynthia Millar A67816 2012 CD
data-sort-value="Lintu"data-sort-value="Hewitt"data-sort-value="Hartmann-Claverie"Valérie Hartmann-Claverie ODE12515 2014 CD
data-sort-value="Sado"data-sort-value="Muraro"Roger Muraro data-sort-value="Hartmann-Claverie"Valérie Hartmann-Claverie TON2005 2018 CD
data-sort-value="Gimeno"data-sort-value="Hamelin"data-sort-value="Forget"Nathalie Forget HMM905336 2024 CD Live

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: New York Times . 12 April 2024 . 11 December 1949 . Bernstein Leads Messiaen's work . Olin . Downes . Olin Downes.
  2. https://www.naxos.com/MainSite/BlurbsReviews/?itemcode=8.554478-79&catnum=554478&filetype=AboutThisRecording&language=English Program notes
  3. Thomas Barker, "The Social and Aesthetic Situation of Olivier Messiaen's Religious Music: Turangalîla-Symphonie." International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. 43, no. 1 (2012): 53–70; citation on 53
  4. Web site: Turangalîla-symphonie . 12 April 2024 . Boston Symphony Orchestra . https://web.archive.org/web/20240412160001/https://www.bso.org/works/messiaen-turangalila-symphonie . 12 April 2024 . live.
  5. Full score, pub, Durand.
  6. Book: Messiaen. Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone. New Haven and London. Yale University Press. 2005. 0-300-10907-5 .
  7. [Robert Sherlaw Johnson]
  8. Hill 2005, 172
  9. Turangalîla-Symphonie . Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille, Myung-whun Chung, Yvonne Loriod, Jean Loriod . 2004 . 1991 . Olivier . Messiaen . 1 . CD liner booklet . . DG 431 781–2 .
    Web site: Page . Tim . Tim Page (music critic) . Live Online: Classical Music Forum . The Washington Post . 11 July 2020 . 20 February 2002.
  10. Hill 2005, 171
  11. Web site: 5 November 2004 . Messiaen Turangalila Symphony . Messiaen: Turangalila/Ozawa . Hurwitz . David. February 14, 2024 . Classics Today . en-US .