Yan Pascal Tortelier’s distinguished series of Dutilleux recordings for Chandos arouses high expectations for his Turangalila, and it does indeed have some of the same qualities: precisely controlled textures and colours, exciting rhythmic heft and powerful energy. But it is distinctly short of dynamic light and shade: in the more heavily scored movements the volume level remains pretty well constant for as much as a minute at a time, and even in the often chamber textures of the third movement (“Turangalila I”) or the strange rituals of the ninth (“Turangalila III”) there is little quiet or mystery. The rhythms are at times rather heavily pointed, too, so the finale is both vociferous and rather jerky, but hardly an expression of grande joie. In the long and crucial central slow movement (No. 6: “Jardin du sommeil d’amour”), where the music should seem almost motionless in its blissful ecstasy, Tortelier seems reluctant to linger over the ends of phrases, moving immediately on to the next; the piano sound here, too, is rather too hard for the liquid song of birds. The preceding wild scherzo, “Joie du sang des etoiles”, is hugely energetic and efficient, but markedly short of passion or of the “extravagance” that Messiaen felt obliged to apologize for or at least to excuse.
Myung-Whun Chung on DG (the first recording of Messiaen’s late revision of the work) received the composer’s last and most enthusiastic imprimatur; the performance is finely played and beautifully recorded but in the slower movements at times a touch sleepy. Riccardo Chailly’s account on Decca, no less well engineered and even better played, does not always escape a feeling that Messiaen’s score has become an orchestral show-piece. Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO on EMI (on two full-price discs) are better than either, but not many recent recordings are as powerful or as satisfying as Andre Previn’s 21-year-old version with the LSO (also on EMI, on two bargain-price discs); the recording is extremely clear, if rather bright, and the performance burns with conviction that Turangalila is a masterpiece.'