Messiaen: Turangalîla - Symphonie / Nagano, Aimard, Kim
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This symphony, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and written between 1946 and 1948, is surely one of the 20th century's most gigantic works. It's cast in 10 movements, and its grandeur of scope and concept, variety and sheer mass of sound are virtually unequalled. Scored for an enormous orchestra with multiple wind and percussion sections, the work includes substantial solo parts for piano and ondes martenot, an electronic keyboard instrument invented by Maurice Martenot that can produce all kinds of sound effects in a wide range of dynamics. The title is derived from two Sanskrit words of manifold meanings, but the composer insisted that he chose it only for its "sonority and melodious qualities." The piece centers on the idea of love, symbolized by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, but though its movements bear elaborate titles, it is not to be considered program music.
Messiaen has become something of a cult figure in recent years; for the uninitiated, his music requires some getting used to. The Symphony's most immediately striking characteristic is the orchestration: from gossamer delicacy of single and double lines, through sonorous brass chorales and thunderous percussion, to the literally overwhelming, often chaotic effect of every instrument on stage playing every note in the scale simultaneously. Its most problematic aspects are its length, repetitiousness, and static quality: the slow movements feel as if time had truly come to a standstill. Obviously, it requires great skill, concentration, and dauntless courage to bring such a work to life, and the performers on this disc succeed brilliantly. Aimard, who studied the piano part with Yvonne Loriod, the wife of the composer and primary exponent of his music, is terrific, and the orchestra sounds ravishing in a score undoubtedly far removed from its tradition. --Edith Eisler
Customer Reviews
A thousand brilliant minute touches create a whole that is often overly sweet
In the mid-1940s Olivier Messiaen, the composer of a wide variety of Roman Catholic pious works, took a peculiar turn towards the subject of romantic love. A 1945 commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave him carte blanche for a work of whatever proportions he desired. The "Turangalila-Symphony" (1946-1948), supposedly inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, was the result.
The symphony is unconventional in structure, eschewing sonata form and comprising ten movements. It is a massive work both in length, well over an hour, and in the instrumental forces it requires. The orchestra is augmented with a larger percussion section, and there are prominent solo parts for ondes martenot, the early electronic instrument, and for piano. In fact, the symphony, whose fifth movement contains an elaborate piano cadenza, has been called a piano concerto as well. "Turangalila" is a showcase of all the elaborate concepts Western and non-Western that Messiaen had learned to date, especially Hindu rhythms (including Messiaen's favourite "non-retrogradable" ones) and gamelan-like colour. So, the work is inventive, but does it sound good? I have to say that yes, but only in moderation. Listening to it once in a great while can be a pleasant experience, but too much exposure reveals the work's syrupy, mushy overtones. No wonder that Boulez called it "brothel music". Messiaen the Christian mystic was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century--works like "Eclairs sur l'au dela" and "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" consistenly dazzle the listener--but as for Messiaen the lover, well, thank goodness this was just a temporary aside.
This Teldec recording sounds wonderful, with bright colours and sharp tones. The Berliner Philharmoniker lead by Kent Nagano by Messiaen's 1990 revision of the symphony, which as score samples in the liner notes show, was substantial. One can be thankful that Nagano's pacing is expert enough to get the symphony onto a single compact disc without coming across as overly quick. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, friend of the composer and one of the world's finest pianists of contemporary repertoire, gives a dazzling performance. Dominique Kim appears on ondes martenot solo.
Staged/mechanical
Not sure how else to say it, but this is chopped into sections, more than is called for. Messiaen wrote in a peculiar manner, phrasing is somewhat in blocks. Nagano takes things too methodically, there's not the right amount of blending.
This Nagano/Berlin does not compare favorable with my first choice Ricardo Chailly/Concertgebouw, which I gladly give 5 Stars.
Concerning the above reviews, which frankly I've NOT bothered to read, is very typical of amazon reviews. Too amny give away too many stars.
Which frankly is not just and fair to alot better recordings.
NOTE: Buyer beware.
Sorry 2 stars.
I have now become dis-enchanted with Messiaen as of last week. READ Wilbod's review of the opera St Francsis/Nagano.
I have to agree with him.
Messiaen was OK for about 3 months after which I lost interest..
So brilliant it makes me love the piece
I think it was T.S. Eliot who said that a great artist must create the audience by which he is appreciated. That's certainly true of Messiaen and his seminal Turangalila (premiered in America by Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood--if only he had recorded it!) Just as much as Le Scare, Turangalila is a shocking, cosmic work. It is raucous and primitive, but with a bizarre flavor at times of the slithery cabaret harmonies beloved by Poulenc and Milhaud. Stravinsky was much more disciplined and had more structural clarity than Messiaen; I imagine he would have also been appaled by the banality of the musical seeds that grow into luxuriant jungle here. Turangalila sprawls and uncoils its immense length like an engorged python.
Messiaen would go further in his obsession with exotic cultures, gamelan, bird calls, and storming the cosmos. His output is a bulging suitcase of noises I don't like opening, but here Nagano does so brilliantly I couldn't help but be won over. The virtuosity and sheer ease of the Berlin Phil. make you realize that at long last orchestras can toss off Turangalila without strain--something one cannot say about ealire recordings. I must say that at this level of committment, Nagano made a convert of me. I even went to a concert of Turangalila with Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orch. in Carnegie Hall, an event greeted with cheers at the end. Messiaen has won--he created his audience after all.
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