Messiaen Turangalila Symphony
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Olivier Messiaen
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: DG
Magazine Review Date: 11/1991
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 79
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 431 781-2GH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Turangalîla Symphony |
Olivier Messiaen, Composer
Jeanne Loriod, Ondes martenot Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor Olivier Messiaen, Composer Orchestra of the Opéra-Bastille (Paris) Yvonne Loriod, Piano |
Author:
Messiaen's Turangalila-symphonie has been lucky on records. The excellent recordings by Ozawa (RCA, 9/68—nla) and Previn (HMV, 6/78—nla) were special events. Even as late as 1978, the work remained a rarity in the concert-hall—it always seemed to win a standing ovation from the small band of devotees who turned out to hear it. The more recent accounts by Rattle and Salonen (listed above) have tended to present Turangalila—virtually standard repertoire these days—as an orchestral tour de force, driving the music progressively harder and faster with vivid digital recordings to match. I must admit to having enjoyed Salonen's CBS version a good deal less than did MEO. Textures are dominated by Tristan Murail's ondes martenot, and, with Paul Crossley's piano similarly close-miked, the total effect is as much intimidating as joyful, though the elemental expressive force is certainly there.
I half expected Myung-Whun Chung to take the process a stage further, having squeezed the work on to a single CD for DG. But, in fact, this is a careful, soft-grained, almost genteel account, which underplays the brash exuberance and clearly intends to integrate the soloists into the orchestral texture. In trying to compensate for what sounds like an unsuitably resonant venue, the DG engineers have produced a recessed, slightly dull orchestral image, subjectively narrower in dynamic range than David Murray's sterling effort for Rattle on EMI. Some string and percussion musics are well caught, but Yvonne Loriod tends to sound marooned in her pool of resonance, while Jeanne is reduced to inaudibility, which some may count a blessing.
The fresh, unmannered qualities Chung brought to his BIS Nielsen cycle are not always appropriate here. It is not that his speeds are necessarily rushed: any feeling of breathlessness arises from the cautious pacing of rhetorical gestures, which tend to be softened into a seamless flow, as in ''Chant d'amour I''.
Where Salonen, at a similar tempo, brings a jazz snap to the bass in ''Turangalila I'', Chung is po-faced. In ''Chant d'amour II'', on the other hand, he is pawky, in the manner of Prokofiev—an unsettling though not unattractive treatment. Chung is more reluctant to leave the beautiful ''Jardin du sommeil d'amour'' than his rivals (Salonen is surely too bright and forward here), but his ''Final'' is not pushed home with anything like the necessary inevitability and verve—a cautious apotheosis indeed.
This is the first fruit of DG's ambitious programme with Chung and the Orchestre de la Bastille, and many will consider it an advantage to have a French orchestra and a brace of Loriods in this of all works. Given that the record companies have always had trouble finding a suitable coupling, DG's economical format has obvious appeal. All the same, if you want a performance that dispels lingering doubts about the work's staying power, go back to EMI and Simon Rattle. The Birmingham winds have greater tonal splendour, and his soloists sound altogether fresher and more spontaneous: Yvonne Loriod has been playing this music for more than 40 years now and it may be starting to show.'
I half expected Myung-Whun Chung to take the process a stage further, having squeezed the work on to a single CD for DG. But, in fact, this is a careful, soft-grained, almost genteel account, which underplays the brash exuberance and clearly intends to integrate the soloists into the orchestral texture. In trying to compensate for what sounds like an unsuitably resonant venue, the DG engineers have produced a recessed, slightly dull orchestral image, subjectively narrower in dynamic range than David Murray's sterling effort for Rattle on EMI. Some string and percussion musics are well caught, but Yvonne Loriod tends to sound marooned in her pool of resonance, while Jeanne is reduced to inaudibility, which some may count a blessing.
The fresh, unmannered qualities Chung brought to his BIS Nielsen cycle are not always appropriate here. It is not that his speeds are necessarily rushed: any feeling of breathlessness arises from the cautious pacing of rhetorical gestures, which tend to be softened into a seamless flow, as in ''Chant d'amour I''.
Where Salonen, at a similar tempo, brings a jazz snap to the bass in ''Turangalila I'', Chung is po-faced. In ''Chant d'amour II'', on the other hand, he is pawky, in the manner of Prokofiev—an unsettling though not unattractive treatment. Chung is more reluctant to leave the beautiful ''Jardin du sommeil d'amour'' than his rivals (Salonen is surely too bright and forward here), but his ''Final'' is not pushed home with anything like the necessary inevitability and verve—a cautious apotheosis indeed.
This is the first fruit of DG's ambitious programme with Chung and the Orchestre de la Bastille, and many will consider it an advantage to have a French orchestra and a brace of Loriods in this of all works. Given that the record companies have always had trouble finding a suitable coupling, DG's economical format has obvious appeal. All the same, if you want a performance that dispels lingering doubts about the work's staying power, go back to EMI and Simon Rattle. The Birmingham winds have greater tonal splendour, and his soloists sound altogether fresher and more spontaneous: Yvonne Loriod has been playing this music for more than 40 years now and it may be starting to show.'
Messiaen Turangalila Symphony
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