BaL 26.05.12/25.02.23 - Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony

[Joseph K]

I absolutely love Turangalila-Symphonie! I remember hearing part of the first Turangalila movement in some after-school music GCSE training as an example of heterophony, and I fell instantly in love with it. The whole symphony is astonishing.

I still really like Previn with the LSO, which was the first version I purchased and one of the first CDs I ordered online, not too long after hearing that example as mentioned above. I think I have a few other versions, including Cambreling (whose box of Messiaen's orchestral works I've barely touched since buying ) must give them a listen...

[Bryn]

I absolutely love Turangalila-Symphonie! I remember hearing part of the first Turangalila movement in some after-school music GCSE training as an example of heterophony, and I fell instantly in love with it. The whole symphony is astonishing.

I still really like Previn with the LSO, which was the first version I purchased and one of the first CDs I ordered online, not too long after hearing that example as mentioned above. I think I have a few other versions, including Cambreling (whose box of Messiaen's orchestral works I've barely touched since buying ) must give them a listen...

You have some very fine recordings to look forward to listing to there. Cambreling makes a far better fist of Messiaen's work than Boulez did in his later years, as far as I'm concerned. It's not just Turangalîla-Symphonie that Boulez failed to gel with. He came to disrespect Messiaen's specific instructions regarding letting the sound of the tam-tam strokes in Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum die away fully before proceeding when he made his second (DG) recording of the work Cleveland), for instance. His earlier recording for Erato and CBS (Sony) is far superior in this respect.

[Joseph K]

Good to know.

[RichardB]

Bryn is right. There is some shall we say weird intonation in the first movement of the older Boulez recording of EERM which I have always really liked. As for Turangalîla, for me it's one of the most beautiful musical works of the 20th century, although the last time I saw it performed live (NZSO with Matthias Bamert) it was clear that many in the audience wouldn't agree, since every pause between movements saw a few of them leave.

[jayne lee wilson]

I should do no such thing. Turangalila came out that way, just as Rossini's William Tell did; and cutting would not help the matter, in either case. It is what it is, for better and worse. A bold, monumental, and thoroughly excessive piece of orchestral theatre. The excess is rather the point, actually.

Somewhat of a politician's response, avoiding your own questions: "and by his later standards the structuring of the second half (after 5 and 6) leaves questions, at least for me".
As well as mine (vide #110), and those close structural (and other) parallels and connections with Messiaen's last great work......

As I see you've reiterated such -
"But to pretend Turangalila is a flawless masterpiece does it no service".

I feel bound to ask, which "flaws"? How can one render it such a "service" if one doesn't recognise them in the first (or last) place?

[Master Jacques]

Somewhat of a politician's response, avoiding your own questions: "and by his later standards the structuring of the second half (after 5 and 6) leaves questions, at least for me".

Ah, you misunderstood me. I was being publicly polite to movements 7 through 10. My "question" was rhetorical, an opinion which called for no challenge as to how I could "improve" Messiaen's mega-work. As I tried to say, nobody could do that, not even the composer himself. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to "do a Schalk" on anyone, be they Bruckner or Bowie.

The creative act is complex. Composing or writing we give our work its head, and musical material, characters and formal patterns have a way of taking control. We can't let our critical faculty interfere until a later stage of the process. Often that comes too late, as it was for Rossini with Guillaume Tell, Janacek in Osud, or - I suggest - for Messiaen in Turangalila, a fascinating but necessarily excessive work of art.

Wagner, after struggling at various times to put right what he considered had gone wrong with Tannhäuser (which tackles the self-same problem, inherent to art) ended up by saying that he "owed the world another Tannhäuser". He was being honestly self-critical to a fault; and it would take one of the true Messiaen experts on here, to tell us how the French master evaluated this work, which made him a controversial world figure overnight, at various times in his life.

That's what I meant when I said that "it is what it is, for better and worse". Art, like life, is bigger than an "either-or" business. And formally flawed music is often more interesting - and long-lasting - than formal perfection.

[Darloboy]

Another ten years on BAL - do they consult their records of when a work was last done ? The K467 debacle suggests the opposite.

Indeed. Hardly worth me bothering to say what won last time given that it's obvious from earlier in the thread but here we go anyway:

Nick Morgan May 02: Tortelier
Jeremy Thurlow May 12: Nagano

The work was also covered by Roger Nichols in Jan 88 but I'm afraid I don't know which recording he chose.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah, you misunderstood me. I was being publicly polite to movements 7 through 10. My "question" was rhetorical, an opinion which called for no challenge as to how I could "improve" Messiaen's mega-work. As I tried to say, nobody could do that, not even the composer himself. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to "do a Schalk" on anyone, be they Bruckner or Bowie.

The creative act is complex. Composing or writing we give our work its head, and musical material, characters and formal patterns have a way of taking control. We can't let our critical faculty interfere until a later stage of the process. Often that comes too late, as it was for Rossini with Guillaume Tell, Janacek in Osud, or - I suggest - for Messiaen in Turangalila, a fascinating but necessarily excessive work of art.

Wagner, after struggling at various times to put right what he considered had gone wrong with Tannhäuser (which tackles the self-same problem, inherent to art) ended up by saying that he "owed the world another Tannhäuser". He was being honestly self-critical to a fault; and it would take one of the true Messiaen experts on here, to tell us how the French master evaluated this work, which made him a controversial world figure overnight, at various times in his life.

That's what I meant when I said that "it is what it is, for better and worse". Art, like life, is bigger than an "either-or" business. And formally flawed music is often more interesting - and long-lasting - than formal perfection.

...In the face of which condescending prevarication........ I give up.

[Master Jacques]

...In the face of which condescending prevarication........ I give up.

Apologies if my attempt at an honest response is not to your taste, 'Jayne'.

[Alison]

Good posts here guys, expanding my knowledge and appreciation of this masterwork.

[Pulcinella]

Chailly, Previn, and Salonen here, as well as a BBC MM CD: BBCNOW/Fischer (2006 performance in Cardiff).
Fond memories of the Ozawa, which I had on LP (coupled with the Takemitsu, which seems not to have been transferred to CD), which I streamed recently. The Previn is not helped by being split over two CDs (at least in the version I have, with Poulenc couplings).

[Master Jacques]

Chailly, Previn, and Salonen here, as well as a BBC MM CD: BBCNOW/Fischer (2006 performance in Cardiff).
Fond memories of the Ozawa, which I had on LP (coupled with the Takemitsu, which seems not to have been transferred to CD), which I streamed recently. The Previn is not helped by being split over two CDs (at least in the version I have, with Poulenc couplings).

As a side matter, the Ozawa November Steps has been available on a Japanese CD issue from 1999 (RCA Red Seal BVCC-37283) which is immensely valuable, coupled as it is with Ozawa's Toronto recordings of Asterism, Green, the Requiem for Strings and The Dorian Horizon.

I too have fond memories of Ozawa's Turangalila, a favourite with me before I fell out of love with the Messiaen piece.

[Bryn]

Chailly, Previn, and Salonen here, as well as a BBC MM CD: BBCNOW/Fischer (2006 performance in Cardiff).
Fond memories of the Ozawa, which I had on LP (coupled with the Takemitsu, which seems not to have been transferred to CD), which I streamed recently. The Previn is not helped by being split over two CDs (at least in the version I have, with Poulenc couplings).

The DVD-A of the Previn is a joy, it also has DVD-V options offering 2-channel stereo and Dolby Digital surround.



Previn's tempi are a little leisurely, in general.

Oh, and http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...069#post167069

[Petrushka]

Chailly, Previn, and Salonen here, as well as a BBC MM CD: BBCNOW/Fischer (2006 performance in Cardiff).
Fond memories of the Ozawa, which I had on LP (coupled with the Takemitsu, which seems not to have been transferred to CD), which I streamed recently. The Previn is not helped by being split over two CDs (at least in the version I have, with Poulenc couplings).

The Previn is on 1 CD in the big Warner Previn box.

[RichardB]

I don't know why Salonen bothers with Messiaen - both in this piece and in Des canyons... his approach is so detached and abstract as to be, to my mind at least, exactly the opposite of what the music needs. I don't think I've ever even heard the Previn recording.

One of the most important aspects of the work for me is the way it intertwines rigorous structure and intense expressiveness. I guess some might say it involves too much of both. The ingenious and always clearly perceptible way that its thematic material is transformed and varied, at the same time without any hint of traditional "symphonic" development, is a thing of great beauty as far as I'm concerned. Not to mention the wildly colourful orchestration (which owes more to Villa-Lobos than is generally acknowledged I think). If I ever tired of it this could only be due to being tired of living. (Mind you I really am tired of London.)