21.01.2020

A major opus of French orchestral music of the 20th century – Turangalîla-Symphonie at the Mariinsky Theatre

On 30 January at the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre there will be a performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie – a major opus of French orchestral music of the 20th century. It will be performed by the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Dmitry Liss – one of relatively few ensembles in Russia to include this grandiose score in its repertoire. The orchestra performed the symphony to great acclaim last December in Yekaterinburg, and following its performance in St Petersburg the ensemble will be presenting the piece at the Zaryadye Concert Hall in Moscow.

The name of Turangalîla comes from Sanskrit roots and denotes a song of love, a hymn to joy, to time, to movement, to rhythm, to life and to death. Messiaen, a veritable cosmopolitan in musical terms, was inspired by the musical traditions of various cultures: the sound of jazz, Indian ragas and the Indonesian gamelan. In the symphony they are embodied in a capricious combination together with elements of the avant-garde style. The music of the opus is threaded with rhythms of ecstatic dance and the birdcalls so beloved by the composer.

The ten-movement symphony is on a truly vast scale – it lasts almost one and a half hours and was written for a massive orchestra. Solos are provided by the piano and the ondes Martenot – an electronic musical instrument which was invented in France in 1928 and which, thanks to its unusual “cosmic” timbre, came to be loved by composers of both classical and experimental genres. The voice of this instrument, in the words of the composer’s wife Yvonne Loriod, was something he “expected to hear in Heaven”. At the concert the solos will be performed by French musicians whose artistic careers have been linked to Messiaen: Roger Muraro (piano) and Nathalie Forget (ondes Martenot). Roger Muraro, whose performance received lofty praise from the composer himself, has recorded all of Messiaen’s music for piano, while Nathalie Forget was a student of Jeanne Loriod, the first performer of the ondes Martenot part in numerous works by Messiaen.

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