Messiaen

“Superhuman, overflowing, dazzling, and abandoned.” Heady stuff, and you might think it’s immodestly heady when you hear that Olivier Messiaen used it to describe one of his own works: the kaleidoscopic Turangalîla-symphonie. But after listening to this adventurous, ecstatic work in praise of love, you’ll understand.

Almost everything Messiaen heard could become part of his music. Cooing songbirds, exotic Far Eastern and Indian musical traditions—even the clicks and whistles of an often poorly maintained organ—are all sounds that inspired the composer to write colorful, individualistic works.

Such originality shines through in the Turangalîla-symphonie, a series of love songs without words whose title fuses the Sanskrit turanga (“time”) and lîla (“play”) and means “love song and hymn of joy, time, movement, rhythm, life, and death.” It explores love in many guises, spiritual and worldly, frenzied and tender, and on February 15 the conductor David Robertson—an urbane, witty, revelatory guide—offers an introduction to this complex symphony in a Discovery Concert at Carnegie Hall. With overhead projections and excerpts performed live by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Robertson unfolds the mysteries of Turangalîla and then leads the orchestra in a complete performance of this cornerstone of the 20th-century symphonic repertoire.

“When the whole piece is played,” Robertson says, “the audience will have a better sense of the particular things that make Messiaen’s personality so marvelous and compelling.”

This year marks the centenary of Messiaen’s birth, and if you’re curious to learn even more about the pioneering French composer, Carnegie Hall devotes an entire Discovery Day to him on February 24. On hand will be another French pioneer, the eminent composer-conductor Pierre Boulez, a former colleague and pupil of Messiaen. In an interview, Boulez will share his firsthand reminiscences of Messiaen. A screening of a new documentary by Olivier Mille, Olivier Messiaen: The Crystal Liturgy, will provide further insights into the man, his music, and his world. Other notable guests will discuss this visionary musician; for the rousing conclusion, Michael Mizrahi and Elizabeth Joy Roe will perform Messiaen’s two-piano work Visions de l’amen, which Messiaen wrote for himself and Yvonne Loriod (whom he would later marry)—a work that conjures up the joyful noise of a ringing carillon and the rapturous din of a gamelan orchestra.

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