Turangalîla-Symphonie

I Introduction: modéré, un peu vif

II Chant d’amour 1: modéré, lourd

III Turangîla1: presque lent, rêveur

IV Chant d’amour 2: bien modéré

V Joie du sang des étoiles: vif, passioné avec joie

VI Jardin du sommeil d’amour: très modéré, très tendre

VII Turangalîla 2: un peu vif, bien modéré

VIII Développement de l’amour: bien modéré

IX Turangalîla 3: bien modéré

X Final: modéré, presque vif, avec une grande joie

1 There is no greater work in the French orchestral repertoire than Messiaen’s Turangalîla. It can stand comparison with Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique for originality, Franck’s Symphony in D minor for spirituality, and even, for sheer genius, with Debussy’s La Mer: while it is over-shadowed by none of them, it is bigger in every dimension than any one of them. It is a symphony in ten movements, lasting 80 minutes in all, scored for a large orchestra including 16 percussion instruments, ondes martenot, and solo paino. Commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky, who generously gave the composer an entirely free hand, it was first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, with Yvonne Loriod as solo pianist, in Boston Symphony Hall in December 1949. In spite of its immense complexity, a succession of early performances established the reputation of Olivier Messiaen – organist of La Trinité in Paris and a teacher at the Conservatoire – as one of the most individual (some would say eccentric) as well as one of the most accomplished composers of his generation.

2 Messiaen once declared that the most important things in his life and work were God, love, and nature – in that order. No one who is familiar with his major works, from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps of 1941 to his vast opera Saint François d’Assise of 1983, could doubt the sincerity of that statement. But there was a time – coinciding with some of the years of his unconsummated love for Yvonne Loriod – when God was rather less important an influence on his music than love and nature.

This was the period between 1945 and 1949 when he was involved with his Tristan triology – the song cycle Harawi, the Turangîla-Symphonie, and the Cinq Rechants for 12 solo voices. The three works represent different aspects of the Tristan and Isolde legend, which to Messiaen was more than a love story. It was a symbol, as he put it, of “fatal, irresistible love which transcends everything outside itself . . . . In the three works – as in the paintings of Chagall – the lovers soar beyond themselves and disappear in the clouds.” His version of Tristan and Isolde is a surrealist vision wreathed in swags of birdsong, a celebration of love which is both carnal and, in its consummation in death, divine.

Something of this is expressed in the title of the symphony, which derives from two Sanskrit words, turanga and lila.. The composite turangalila signifies “at one and the same time,” according to the composer, “a love song, a hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.” The love story runs through the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth movements: that is all those with amour in the title, together with Joie du sang des étoiles and Final. Messiaen does not abandon his exploration into the organistion of time in those six movements but it is in the three headed Turangalîla (the third, seventh, and ninth) that he concentrates more on developing his technical ideas than on indulging his erotic passion.

There is a clear, though by no means dispassionate, presentation of the two basic themes and some of the major protagonists of the symphony in the Introduction. From the emotional point of view, the most significant of the protagonists are the piano, which has a heroic solo part, and the ondes martenot, an electronic instrument which though primitive in comparison with the modern synthesiser (it was invented nearly 80 years ago by Maurice Martenot) has a voice and character all its own. The piano part was written for Yvonne Loriod and the ondes martenot part for the sister of the inventor Ginette Martenot.

It is not insignificant that the piano and the ondes make their first entry at the same time as that of the first main theme, not with the theme itself but in shrieks and tremolandos as trombones and tuba stride in with their symbol of monumental masculinity. It is not too fanciful either to describe the second main theme, which appears very briefly and very quietly on two clarinets, as feminine: Messiaen himself defines it as a “flower” theme. A third major protagonist is the percussion section, including keyboard and unpitched instruments which the composer calls the “gamelan” and which he uses primarily to present the rhythmic themes or tala derived (like the title of the work itself) from Sanskrit sources.

The third main theme of the symphony, the love theme, does not make a full and definitive appearance until the sixth movement. It does, however, begin to take shape in Chant d’amour 1, which is a kind of rondo. Tristan is represented by a vigorous and passionate trumpet tune based on the masculine theme from the first movement, Isolde by a suddenly slow and tender melody, which is partly an echo of the feminine theme and partly an anticipation of the love theme, characteristically coloured by ondes martenot and upper strings in octaves.

Continuing the love story and leaving the Turangalîla or “time” movements aside for a moment (see below), the second Chant d’amour is a juggernaut of a scherzo with two trios. The scherzo theme is a Tristan caricature presented by piccolo and bassoon four actaves apart. The trio sections are Isolde episodes which are subsequently superimposed both on each each other and on the scherzo material.

The two central movements are both ternary constructions and represent two different aspects of the consummation of the love of Tristan and Isolde. Joie du sang des étoiles (“Joy of the blood of the stars”) has been described by Messiaen as an “African dance” which, applied to this unbridled expression of physical joy – based exclusively on the thrusting masculine motif, often accompanied by shrieks from the ondes martenot – is surely an evasion of what it is really about. Jardin du sommeil d’amour (“Garden of the sleep of love”) is, in contrast, an expression of timeless spiritual serenity. As the lovers sleep, the love theme very slowly unwinds on ondes martenot and muted strings against a background of birdsong on the piano and a variety of subsidiary themes on flute, clarinet, and vibraphone.

Unlike birdsong, which was a lifelong passion for Messiaen, thematic development is not a major feature of his work. Développement de l’amour, however, is a development in two senses: it is concerned with the love of Tristan and Isolde “growing into infinity” and, at the same time, the symphonic development of the main themes of the work. The masculine and feminine motifs are prominent, of course, and so is the basic juxtaposition of the physical and spiritual expressions of love, recalling the two central movements and achieving a climax here in an ecstatic statement of the the love theme not long before the end.

The jubilant Final is the one movement with some relationship to conventional symphonic form. The first subject is a fanfare on trumpets and horns. The true identity of the second subject, introduced by ondes martenot and strings in quick triple time, is not easily recognisable at this point, but it becomes quite clear when, for the last time, the love theme emerges in its slow tempo and in its full ecstatic glory on nearly every melodic instrument in the orchestra.

3 In a note in the first edition of the score Messiaen offers suggestions as to selections that might be made from the ten movements, including a sequence of just the three Turangalîlas (but in a different order: Nos. 7, 9 and 3). It is an interesting idea and one that is not only legitimate to pursue but also, since the other movements are relatively easy to follow, instructive. All three of these movement include complex textures of rhythmic counterpoint featuring the unpitched percussion, which make their first entry as an ensemble in the Introduction (track 1, 3.50), following the introduction of the masculine (0.27) and feminine (2.24) main themes.

While rhythmic patterns sustained by instruments like wood-blocks and maracas can all too easily disappear in the full-orchestral sonority, they are often blended with other instruments with exquisite sensitivity, as in the passage with woodwind soloists, celesta, piano, solo violin and two piziccato basses in Turangalîla 1 (track 3, 2.18). In Turangalîla 2 (track 7), which awakens the sleeping lovers with a strident dawn chorus on the piano, the unpitched percussion material is presented alone (0.53) and then swallowed in a massive tutti (2.14) which introduces the fourth main theme of the work, the dissonant “chord theme,” in an oppressively sinister middle section. Turangalîla 3 (track 9) is a theme-and-variations movement with the difference that after two statements of the theme the variations are superimposed. The passage beginning (2.31) with an unpitched percussion counterpoint set against 13 solo strings and then pitched percussion, piano and ondes martento in its top register is sublimely inspired. An “extraordinary movement,” Messiaen called it.

The percussion instruments pursue their own rhythmic agenda throughout the jubilant Final (track 10), not always audibly but retreating only at the great ffff love-theme climax to the work (5.15) and returning (7.06) to participate in their own way in the wildly elated coda.

4

Messiaen: Harawi; Poèmes pour mi

Dorothy Dorrow (soprano), Jacqueline Delman (soprano), Carl Axel Dominique (piano), Lucia Negro (piano)

BIS-CD-86

Messiaen: Cinq rechants

Jolivet: Epithalame

Daniel-Lesur: La Cantique des Cantiques

Sixteen/Harry Christophers

Coro

(if Coro CD unavailable:

Messiaen: Cinq Rechants; O sacrum convivium

Stockhausen: Chöre für Doris; Choral

Xenakis: A Hélène; Nuits; Serment

Danish National Radio Choir/Jesper Grove Jørgensen

Chandos)

I Introduction: modéré, un peu vif

II Chant d’amour 1: modéré, lourd

III Turangîla1: presque lent, rêveur

IV Chant d’amour 2: bien modéré

V Joie du sang des étoiles: vif, passioné avec joie

VI Jardin du sommeil d’amour: très modéré, très tendre

VII Turangalîla 2: un peu vif, bien modéré

VIII Développement de l’amour: bien modéré

IX Turangalîla 3: bien modéré

X Final: modéré, presque vif, avec une grande joie

Olivier Messiaen once declared that the most important things in his life and work were God, love, and nature – in that order. No one who is familiar with his major works, from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps of 1941 to his vast opera Saint François d’Assise of 1983, could doubt the sincerity of that statement. But there was a time – coinciding with some of the years of his frustrated passion for Yvonne Loriod – when God was rather less important an influence on his music than love and nature.

This was the period, between 1945 and 1949, when he was involved with his “Tristan” triology – the Harawi songs for soprano and piano, the Turangîla-Symphonie, and the Cinq Rechants for 12 solo voices. The three works represent different aspects of the Tristan and Isolde legend, which to Messiaen was more than a love story. It was a symbol, as he put it, of “fatal, irresistible love which transcends everything outside itself . . . . In the three works – as in the paintings of Chagall – the lovers soar beyond themselves and disappear in the clouds.” His version of Tristan and Isolde is a surrealist vision wreathed in swags of birdsong, a celebration of love which is both carnal and, in its consummation in death, divine.

Something of this is expressed in the title of the symphony, which dervies from two Sanskrit words: Lîla, which means “love,” and Turanga, which means “time” – although both, like most words belonging to ancient oriental languages, mean much more besides. So, according to Messiaen, “Turangalîla signifies, at one and the same time, a love song, a hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.”

To simplify matters – which, frankly, are both too complicated and too irrational to be categorised in this way – the Lîla or love element of the work is its expressive content and the Turanga or time element its most personal technical aspect. The love story runs through the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth movements: that is all those with amour or love in the title, together with Joie du sang des étoiles and Final, which latter, because of their primarily physical inspiration, stand apart from the others. Messiaen does not discontinue his exploration into the organistion of time in those six movements but it is in the three headed Turangalîla (the third, seventh, and ninth) that he concentrates more on developing his technical ideas than on indulging his erotic passion.

The Introduction is a kind of preface to the symphony, a clear though by no means dispassionate presentation of the two basic themes and some of the major protagonists. From the emotional point of view, the most significant of the protagonists are the piano, which has a heroic solo part, and the ondes martenot, an electronic instrument which though primitive by modern standards (it was invented as long as 80 years ago by Maurice Martenot) has a voice and character all its own. The piano part was written for Yvonne Loriod, one of Messiaen’s composition pupils whom he later married, and the ondes martenot part for the sister of the inventor Ginette Martenot.

It is not insignificant that the piano and the Ondes make their first entry at the same time as that of the first main theme, not with the theme itself but in shrieks and tremolandos as trombones and tuba stride in with their symbol of monumental masculinity. It is not too fanciful either to describe the second main theme, which appears very briefly and very quietly on two clarinets, as feminine: Messiaen himself defines it as a “flower” theme. A third major protagonist is the percussion section – the keyboard instruments (glockenspiel, celesta, and vibraphone), the tubular bells, and a whole array of instruments of indefinite pitch. The composer calls it the “gamelan” and he uses it primarily to present the rhythmic themes or tala which (like the title of the work itself) he has derived from Sanskrit sources. The gamelan makes its entry immediately after a piano cadenza in the first “time” episode, where it sustains its several rhythmic patterns against counterpoints on woodwind and strings and, later, alternating brass and piano chords.

The third main theme of the symphony, the love theme, does not make a full and definitive appearance until the sixth movement. It does, however, begin to take shape in Chant d’amour 1, which is a kind of rondo construction – a dramatic introduction, three separate statements of the main Tristan and Isolde section alternating with two episodes of extraordinary rhythmic ingenuity, and some development. In the recurring sections Tristan is represented by a vigorous and passionate trumpet tune based on the masculine theme from the first movement, Isolde by a suddenly slow and tender melody, which is partly an echo of the feminine theme and partly an anticipation of the love theme, characteristically coloured by Ondes martenot and upper strings in octaves. The Isolde theme makes a climactic reappearance before the end of the movement.

In the first of the “time” movements, Turangalîla 1, Messiaen presents three main melodic ideas – a lyrical exchange between clarinet and ondes martenot over solo double-bass pizzicato, a heavy brass chorale below a jangling gamelan, a supple canon for flute and oboe – and a combination of three “rhythmic characters,” as he calls them. These last make their entry on maracas, woodblock, and bass drum at the same time as the flute and oboe canon and they persist through a tumultuous combination of the first two melodic themes to survive into a quiet and witty little coda.

Whereas the first Chant d’amour was a kind of rondo, Chant d’amour 2 is a kind of scherzo, and of a very remarkable kind. The main theme is a cheerful Tristan characterisation, jerky in rhythm and jokily presented by piccolo and bassoon four actaves apart. The trio section, approached by way of a bridge passage, is an Isolde episode with three main themes – a passionately lyrical melody for ondes martenot supported by strings and woodwind, a gentle woodwind chorale, and a pentatonic cello solo with seven other solo strings. If the subsequent superimpositions (of the woodwind and string themes, one on top of the other, and of the ondes theme with the scherzo tune, while the piano sustains a brilliant birdsong commentary) seem somehwat complicated, they are simple in comparison with what happens on the return of the scherzo section.

The two central movements are both ternary constructions and, in that they represent two different aspects of the consummation of the love of Tristan and Isolde, they can be taken together. Joie du sang des étoiles (“Joy of the blood of the stars”) has been described by Messiaen as an “African dance.” Applied to this unbridled expression of physical joy, “African dance” is surely a modest evasion of what it is really about. It is based exclusively on the masculine motif – first in a vigorous, thrusting version greeted by shrieks from the Ondes martenot, then in several transformations as rhythmic characters in the middle section and finally, after an explosive piano cadenza at the climax of the movement, in a massive augmentation for the whole orchestra. Jardin du sommeil d’amour (“Garden of the sleep of love”), on the other hand, is an expression of timeless spiritual serenity. The love theme very slowly unwinds on ondes martenot and muted strings against a background of birdsong on the piano and a variety of subsidiary themes on flute, clarinet, and vibraphone. “The lovers are outside time,” says Messiaen, “Let’s not wake them.”

If we don’t wake theme, however, the second of the “time” movements, Turangalîla 2, which begins with a strident dawn chorus on the piano, surely will. The rest of the movement is based on three different kinds of material – a convergence of a sweetly descending line on the Ondes Marteno and rising threats from the lower brass, a combination of five rhythmic patters on unpitched percussion, and a relatively peaceful episode recalling some aspects of the previous movement. They are combined, or crushed together, in an oppressively sinister middle section. But the dawn chorus resumes on the other side and the masculine motif strides in before the ondes and brass converge again.

Développement de l’amour (“Development of love”) is a development in two senses: it is concerned with the love of Tristan and Isolde “growing into infinity” (in Messiaen’s words) and with the symphonic development of the main themes of the work. With the exception of the chord theme – which had an oppressive but comparatively obscure role in the previous movement and which reappears here with the first entry of the piano – all the material should be familiar by now. The masculine and feminine motifs are prominent, of course, and so is the basic juxtaposition of the physical and spiritual expressions of love, recalling the two central movements and achieving a climax here in an ecstatic statement of the the love theme not long before the end.

Turangalîla 3 is a theme and variations construction with a difference – which is that, after two statements of the theme, three variations start simultaneously (on the ondes martenot, piano, and pitched percussion) and that a fourth is added later by chattering woodwind. Another difference is that between the two initial statements of the theme Messiaen introduces another combination of five rhythmic patterns which, articulated by the unpitched percussion and coloured by the strings, persist throughout. An “extraordinary movement,” the composer calls it, evidently in some surprise.

The jubilant Final is the one movement in the whole symphony with some relationship to conventional sonata form. The first subject is a fanfare on trumpets and horns. The true identity of the second subject, introduced by ondes martenot and strings in quick triple time, is not easily recognisable at this point, but it becomes quite clear when, for the last time, the love theme emerges in its slow tempo and in its full ecstatic glory on nearly every melodic instrument in the orchestra.

The Turangalîla-Symphonie was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky for the Boston Symphony Orhcestra, written between 1946 and 1948, and first performed in Boston under the direction of Leonard Bernstein in 1949.

I Introduction: modéré, un peu vif

II Chant d’amour 1: modéré, lourd

III Turangîla1: presque lent, rêveur

IV Chant d’amour 2: bien modéré

V Joie du sang des étoiles: vif, passioné avec joie

VI Jardin du sommeil d’amour: très modéré, très tendre

VII Turangalîla 2: un peu vif, bien modéré

VIII Développement de l’amour: bien modéré

IX Turangalîla 3: bien modéré

X Final: modéré, presque vif, avec une grande joie

Olivier Messiaen once declared that the most important things in his life and work were God, love, and nature - in that order. No one who is familiar with the music he wrote over the last fifty years or so could doubt the sincerity of that statement. But there was a time when God was rather less important an influence on his music than love and nature.

This was the period, between 1845 and 1949, when he was involved with his Tristan triology - the Harawi songs for soprano and piano, the Turangîla-Symphonie, and the Cinq Rechants for 12 solo voices. The three works represent different aspects of the Tristan and Isolde legend, which to Messiaen was more than a love story. It was a symbol, as he put it, of “fatal, irresistible love which transcends everything outside itself . . . . In the three works - as in the paintings of Chagall - the lovers soar beyond themselves and disappear in the clouds.” His version of Tristan and Isolde is a surrealist vision wreathed in swags of birdsong, a celebration of love which is both carnal and, in its consummation in death, divine.

Something of this is epxressed in the title of the symphony, which dervies from two Sanskrit words: Lîla, which means “love,” and Turanga, which means “time” - although both, like most words belonging to ancient oriental languages, mean much more besides. So, according to Messiaen, “Turangalîla signifies, at one and the same time, a love song, a hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.”

To simplify matters - which, frankly, are both too complicated and too irrational to be categorised in this way - the Lîla or love element of the work is its expressive content and the Turanga or time element is its most personal technical aspect. The love story runs through the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth movements: that is all those with amour or love in the title, together with Joie du sang des étoiles and Final, which latter, because of their primarily physical inspiration, stand apart from the others. Messiaen does not discontinue his exploration into the organistion of time in those six movements but it is in the three headed Turangalîla (the third, seventh, and ninth) that he concentrates more on developing his technical ideas than on indulging his erotic passion. So the construction of the work looks something like this:

I Introduction

II Chant d’amour

III Turangalîla 1

IV Chant d’amour 2

V Joie du sang des étoiles

VI Jardin du sommeil d’amour

VII Turangalîla 2

VIII Développement de l’amour

IX Turangalîla 3

X Final

I The Introduction is a kind of preface to the symphony, a clear though by no means dispassionate presentation of the two basic themes and some of the major protagonists. From the emotional point of view, the most significant of the protagonists are the piano, which has a heroic solo part, and the Ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument which though primitive by modern standards (it was invented as long as 65 years ago by Maurice Martenot) has a voice and character all its own. The piano part was written for Yvonne Loriod, one of Messiaen’s composition pupils whom he later married, and the Ondes Martenot part for her sister, Jeanne Loriod.

It is not insignificant that the piano and the Ondes make their first entry at the same time as that of the first main theme, not with the theme itself but in shrieks and tremolandos as trombones and tuba stride in with their symbol of monumental masculinity. It is not too fanciful either to describe the second main theme, which appears very briefly and very quietly on two clarinets, as feminine: Messiaen himself defines it as a “flower” theme. A third major protagonist is the percussion section - the keyboard instruments (glockenspiel, celesta, and vibraphone), the tubular bells, and a whole array of instruments of indefinite pitch. The composer calls it the “gamelan” and he uses it primarily to present the rhythmic themes or tala which (like the title of the work itself) he has derived from Sanskrit sources. The gamelan makes its entry immediately after a piano cadenza in the first “time” episode, where it sustains its several rhythmic patters against counterpoints on woodwind and strings and, later, alternating brass and piano chords.

II The third main theme of the symphony, the love theme, does not make a full and definitive appearance until the sixth movement. It does, however, begin to take shape in Chant d’amour 1, which is a kind of rondo construction - a dramatic introduction, three separate statements of the main Tristan and Isolde section alternating with two episodes of extraordinary rhythmic ingenuity, and some development. In the recurring sections Tristan is represented by a vigorous and passionate trumpet tune based on the masculine theme from the first movement, Isolde by a suddenly slow and tender melody, which is partly an echo of the feminine theme and partly an anticipation of the love theme, characteristically coloured by Ondes Martenot and upper strings in octaves. The Isolde theme makes a climactic reappearance before the end of the movement.

III In the first of the “time” movements, Turangalîla 1, Messiaen presents three main melodic ideas - a lyrical exchange between clarinet and Ondes Martenot over solo double-bass pizzicato, a heavy brass chorale below a jangling gamelan, a supple canon for flute and oboe - and a combination of three “rhythmic characters,” as he calls them. These last make their entry on maracas, woodblock, and bass drum at the same time as the flute and oboe canon and they persist through a tumultuous combination of the first two melodic themes to survive into a quiet and witty little coda.

IV Whereas the first Chant d’amour was a kind of rondo, the second is a kind of scherzo, and of a very remarkable kind. The main theme is a cheerful Tristan characterisation, jerky in rhythm and jokily presented by piccolo and bassoon four actaves apart. The trio section, approached by way of a bridge passage, is an Isolde episode with three main themes - a passionately lyrical melody for Ondes Martenot supported by strings and woodwind, a gentle woodwind chorale, and a pentatonic cello solo with seven other solo strings. If the subsequent superimposition (of the woodwind and string themes, one on top of the other, and of the Ondes theme with the scherzo tune, while the piano sustains a brilliant birdsong commentary) seem somehwat complicated, they are simple in comparison with what happens on the return of the scherzo section.

V & VI The two central movements are both ternary constructions and, in that they represent two different aspects of the consummation of the love of Tristan and Isolde, they can be taken together. Joie du sang des étoiles (“Joy of the blood of the stars”) has been described by Messiaen as an “African dance” which, applied to this unbridled expression of physical joy, is surely an understatement. It is based exclusively on the masculine motif - first in a vigorous, thrusting version greeted by shrieks from the Ondes Martenot; then in several transformations as rhythmic characters in the middle section; and finally, after an explosive piano cadenza at the climax of the movement, in a massive augmentation for the whole orchestra

Jardin du sommeil d’amour (“Garden of the sleep of love”), on the other hand, is an expression of timeless spiritual serenity. The love theme very slowly unwinds on Ondes Martenot and muted strings against a background of birdsong on the piano and a variety of subsidiary themes on flute, clarinet, and vibraphone. “The lovers are outside time,” says Messiaen, “Let’s not wake them.”

VII If we don’t wake theme, however, the second of the “time” movements, Turangalîla 2, which begins with a strident dawn chorus on the piano, surely will. The rest of the movement is based on three different kinds of material - a convergence of a sweetly descending line on the Ondes Marteno and rising threats from the lower brass, a combination of five rhythmic patters on unpitched percussion, and a relatively peaceful episode recalling some aspects of the previous movement. They are combined, or crushed together, in an oppressively sinister middle section. But the dawn chorus resumes on the other side and the masculine motif strides in before the Ondes and brass converge again.

VIII Développement de l’amour (“Development of love”) is a development in two senses: it is concerned with the love of Tristan and Isolde “growing into infinity” (in Messiaen’s words) and with the symphonic development of the main themes of the work. With the exception of the chord theme - which had an oppressive but comparatively obscure role in the previous movement and which reappears here with the first entry of the piano - all the material should be familiar by now. The masculine and feminine motifs are prominent, of course, and so is the basic juxtaposition of the physical and spiritual expressions of love, recalling the two central movements and achieving a climax here in an ecstatic statement of the the love theme not long before the end.

IX Turangalîla 3 is a theme and variations construction with a difference, the difference being that, after two statements of the theme, three variations start simultaneously (on the Ondes Martenot, piano, and pitched percussion) and that a fourth is added later by chattering woodwind. Another difference is that between the two initial statements of the theme Messiaen introduces another combination of five rhythmic patterns which, articulated by the unpitched percussion and coloured by the strings, persist throughout. An “extraordinary movement,” the composer calls it, evidently in some surprise.

X The jubilant Final is the one movement in the whole symphony with some relationship to conventional sonata form. The first subject is a fanfare on trumpets and horns. The true identity of the second subject, introduced by Ondes Martenot and strings in quick triple time, is not easily recognisable at this point, but it becomes quite clear when, for the last time, the love theme emerges in its slow tempo and in its full ecstatic glory on nearly every melodic instrument in the orchestra.

The Turangalîla-Symphonie was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky for the Boston Symphony Orhcestra, written between 1946 and 1948, and first performed in Boston under the direction of Leonard Bernstein in 1949.

Gerald Larner©