Title: Turangalîla-Symphonie
English title: Turangalila Symphony
Genre: orchestral
Composition Date: 1946, 17 July - 1948, 29 November
Publisher: Durand (Paris)
Instrumentation: 3.3.3.3, 4.5.3.1, piano (solo), ondes martenot (solo), glockenspiel, celesta, vibraphone, 5 percussion, 16.16.14.12.10
Duration: 75 minutes
Premiere: 2 December 1949, Symphony Hall, Boston (Yvonne Loriod, piano; Ginette Marenot; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor)
Dedication:
Movements:
  1. Introduction [Introduction]
  2. Chant d'amour [Song of Love ]
  3. Turangalîla I
  4. Chant d'amour II [Song of Love II ]
  5. Joie du sang des étoiles [Joy in the Blood of the Stars]
  6. Jardin du sommeil d'amour [The Garden of Love's Slumber]
  7. Turangalîla II
  8. Développement de l'amour [The Growth of love]
  9. Turangalîla III
  10. Final [Finale]
Notes:
  • Messiaen told Antoine Goléa that the word was chosen for its sound as well as its meaning and that ‘turanga has a sense analogous to our use of tempo’, while Lîla means ‘life-force, the game of creation, rhythm and movement’. Goléa, Rencontres, p. 157. According to Sherlaw Johnson, ‘Lîla means, literally, ‘play’, ‘sport’, or ‘amusement’; it is a ‘play’ in the sense of divine action on the cosmos; that is, the acts of creation, destruction, reconstruction, and the play of life and death. It can also mean ‘love’. Turanga signifies ‘time’, the time which runs like a galloping horse, or time which flows like the sand in an hour glass, as well as movement and rhythm. Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen , p. 82.
  • The middle piece in Messiaen's "Tristan trilogy", following Harawi and preceding Cinq rechants.
  • Composed out of order, in the following groups: 1, 4, 6, 10; 3, 7, 9; 2; 8; 5 (Hill, Simeone, p. 160).
  • Movements 3, 4 and 5 were performed seperately, under the title Trois Tâla, on 15 February 1948 (Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; André Cluytens, conductor). This collection was seperately performed on 25 February 1949 (Eduardo Toldra, conductor) in Barcelona. Messiaen later forbid the use of this title.
  • Movements 3, 4 and 5 were used for a 22 June 1960 ballet performance by the Hamburg Opera, with choreography by Peter van Dyk.
Program notes: