Olivier Messiaen
Turangalîla-symphonie

Olivier Messiaen’s music expressed a visionary frame of mind consistently concerned with the stupendous, the miraculous and the transcendent. The composer drew his inspiration from religious revelation, from the most vast and violent manifestations
of nature, and from the songs of birds, whom he regarded as “the greatest musicians of the planet.” Even the most patently human experience—that of romantic love—
was experienced by Messiaen in mystical and mythic terms. Great love, according to the composer, is “a love that is fatal, irresistible, and which, as a rule, leads to death; a love which, to some extent, invokes death, for it transcends the body—even the limits of the mind—and extends on a cosmic scale.” It is a love that Messiaen found expressed most vividly in the legend of Tristan and Isolde.
In the late 1940s, Messiaen wrote three compositions inspired by the notion of transcendent love as manifested in the Tristan myth. The most ambitious of these works, and one of the most remarkable of all the composer’s scores, is the huge Turangalîla-symphonie. The term “Turangalîla” is a composite of two sanskrit words and is rich in meanings. “Turanga” refers to time, or, more precisely, to the movement of time: “time that slips like sand through an hourglass or time that runs like a galloping horse,” in Messiaen’s poetic explanation. “Lîla” signifies love, life, movement, and the cosmic game of creation and destruction. Thus “Turangalîla” implies the temporal occurrence or rhythm of life, love and death.
Messiaen called his work a symphony, but this designation must be understood in the most general sense of the term. The internal details of the Turangalîla-symphonie are no more conventionally symphonic than are its broad formal outlines. Messiaen’s music offers little sense of the dynamic flow of ideas that traditionally characterizes symphonic composition. Rather, the composer uses contrast and juxtaposition as his primary method, moving abruptly between disparate ideas. His harmony is essentially inert—that is, it gives no sense of either tension or resolution—but creates a sound world that is beyond tension and resolution. It serves a coloristic rather than dynamic purpose, and although the composer did not identify specific visual hues in connection
with the chords that appear in Turangalîla-symphonie, as he did in some of his later scores, it is quite possible to hear the work’s harmonies as splashes of aural color.
Messiaen’s coloristic harmony is complemented by a style of orchestration for which the adjective “technicolor” is not too strong. For the most part, the composer treats the several sections of the orchestra—woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings—as distinct choirs, juxtaposing rather than blending their timbres in a way that might be compared to painting with primary colors. The percussion serves an especially important function, with glockenspiel, vibraphone and celesta used in a manner that sometimes resembles the music of Balinese gamelans.
Two instruments enjoy special status. In most of his orchestral works, Messiaen featured the piano in a quasi solo role. Here the instrument contributes virtuoso
cadenzas, melodic phrases based on bird songs, and a rich array of chords, arpeggios
and other figures. More exotic is the ondes martenot, an electronic instrument invented in 1928 by the French engineer Maurice Martenot. Played on a keyboard or with a slide mechanism that permits swooping glissando effects, its tone is high pitched and ethereal. It can penetrate the most thickly scored orchestral climaxes, raising the level of sonic frenzy to an altogether higher degree, or else croon sweetly in lyrical passages.
The 10 movements of Turangalîla-symphonie contain no detailed programmatic references and offer no dramatic continuity. Instead, they present a series of highly unusual—one might even say surreal—aural meditations on love and death.
Introduction: Along with much else, the opening movement introduces two of the symphony’s major themes. The first, which follows a busy prefatory passage, consists of a weighty, wide-stepping figure for the brass. Messiaen likened its character to “some terrible and fatal statue,” pagan and merciless, and it is usually referred to as the “statue” theme. If, as the composer suggested, this subject represents a certain kind of masculine posture, the second important idea, given out by a pair of clarinets alone, conveys an aspect of femininity. Messiaen designated this as the “flower” theme, alluding not only to its gentle demeanor but to the way its melodic lines seem to curl in on themselves, like closing petals. Following the exposition of these two themes, and a good deal of connecting material, there is a glittering piano cadenza and an extended passage, composed of many layers of rhythmic counterpoint, which achieves a quite frenetic level of activity.
Chant d’amour I: The first of the score’s “love songs” considers two aspects of erotic attachment—one strong, passionate, and sometimes terrifying, the other soft and tender—in alternating passages. In the lyrical passages, strings and ondes martenot sound portions of a love theme that will be more fully revealed in the sixth movement.
Turangalîla I: Messiaen juxtaposes a pair of starkly contrasting ideas: a sensuous theme introduced at the outset by clarinets and ondes martenot, and a portentous subject heard in the orchestra’s low register. As the movement progresses, these are extended and combined in counterpoint.
Chant d’amour II: The composer might have called this movement a dance of love, rather than a song, considering the lively syncopations of its initial theme. Messiaen compliments this main idea with other materials, including reminiscences of the “flower” and “statue” themes, as well as another piano cadenza. As in the previous movement, there is a progressive accumulation of sonority as different musical events are superimposed on each other.
Joie du sange des étoiles: This movement’s title, which means “Joy of the Blood of the Stars,” suggests cosmic ecstasy, and that is what Messiaen conveys in this
huge scherzo.
Jardin du sommeil d’amour: Following the Dionysian outburst of the fifth movement, the sixth offers repose. This “Garden of Love’s Sleep” is filled with perfumed melody (the symphony’s love theme), bird songs and a tropical languor. Few composers can write music so slow and sweet that it seems audacious. Messiaen does so here.
Turangalîla II: Messiaen again effects a complete change of mood, presenting
music of agony and death. He admits that he had Poe’s story “The Pit and the
Pendulum” in mind while writing this movement.
Developpement de l’amour: The “Development of Love” indicated by the title
has a double meaning, since Messiaen here thematically develops his symbolic melodies: the “statue,” “flower” and love themes. Extension of the latter idea results in a delirious climax.
Turangalîla III: A chant-like theme introduced by clarinet and supporting
instruments is embellished in a series of increasingly complex variations.
Final: The symphony ends with another ecstatic effusion. As seems inevitable, an apotheosis of the love theme crowns the movement and the work as a whole.

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