Messiaen's Turangalîla

Last night's Utah Symphony concert was absolutely spectacular!  The entire program consisted of an 80-minute performance of Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen and it was incredibly dramatic to say the least!  The title of the piece comes from two Sanskrit words which, when combined together, mean love, joy, time, movement, rhythm, life, and death.  I especially enjoyed the use of a large percussion section (I loved the gong and the chimes) featuring nine different musicians!  Utah Symphony Principal Keyboard Jason Hardink was a featured soloist on piano and Augustin Viard joined the orchestra on the ondes Martenot (he is one of only a few musicians who can play this instrument, which sounds a lot like a theremin, and it was flown in from France just for this concert).  It is comprised of ten separate movements but there are several themes that appear throughout.  My favorite themes were the "statue" theme, which is represented by the trombones and tuba and is incredibly powerful, and the "flower" theme, which consists of two clarinets and is very delicate.  They are often entwined together and are meant to represent the masculine and feminine, especially in the first and third movements.  The "love" theme includes a beautiful melody played by the strings and the ondes and this is incredibly ethereal in sixth movement.  Another theme involves chords played by the piano in opposition to the rest of the orchestra and this is energetic and almost frenzied, particularly with the percussion in the seventh movement.  Hardink's performance was brilliant with several very demanding solo cadenzas and I loved watching his fingers flying up and down the keyboard.  Viard was also really fun to watch on the ondes because I could never really figure out what he was doing.  He was definitely using the keyboard but he was also controlling the sound of the notes with the movement of his fingers.  Whatever he was doing, it looked and sounded really cool!  This piece was completely over-the-top and, while it was sometimes overwhelming to me, it was definitely thrilling!  It is not performed very often because of the orchestra personnel required so, if you are intrigued, you should definitely get a ticket to tonight's performance (go here).