Turangalîla Symphony/November Steps

Olivier Messiaen/Toru Takemitsu - Turangalîla Symphony/November Steps

Performers:

Toronto Symphony conducted by Seiji Ozawa

Turangalîla Symphony:
Yvonne Loriod - piano; Jeanne Loriod - ondes martenot

November Steps:
Kinshi Tsuruta - biwa; Katsuya Yokoyama - shakuhachi




Turangalîla Symphony

The Turangalîla Symphony was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I composed and orchestrated it between July 17, 1946, and November 29, 1948. The world premiere took place on December 2, 1949, in Boston, at a concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein. The piano solo was played by Yvonne Loriod, who has played it at every performance [over 40] of the work, whatever the country, the city, the conductor.
Turangalîla - pronounced with accent and prolonged sound on the last two syllables - is a Sanskrit word. Like all words belonging to ancient Oriental languages, it is very rich in meaning. Lîla literally means play, but play in the sense of divine action on the cosmos, the play of creation, of destruction and reconstruction, the play of life and death. Lîla is also Love. Turanga is Time, the time which runs like a galloping horse, time which slips like sand through the hourglass. Turanga is movement and rhythm. Turangalîla then signifies, at one and the same time, a love song, a hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.
Turangalîla Symphony is a song of love; it is a hymn to joy - not the bourgeois and tranquilly euphoric joy of some honest man of the 17th century, but the joy such as could be conceived only by someone who has beheld it in the midst of sorrow; that is to say, a superhuman joy which transcends everything, overflowing, blinding, boundless. Love is presented under the same aspect - a fatal, irresistible love, which transcends everything outside itself, a love such as is symbolized by the love potion of Tristan and Isolde.
...
The instrumentation of Turangalîla is monumental as well as extremely varied:
Woodwind -- In threes: 1 piccolo and 2 flutes; 2 oboes and English horn; 2 clarinets and bass clarinet; 3 bassoons. They do considerable playing - solos, counterpoint, bird songs, independent harmonic group, detached simultaneously in the high and low registers.
Brass -- Many trumpets: 1 small trumpet in D, 3 trumpets, 1 cornet, 8 horns, 3 trombones and tuba. The high register of the trumpet in D adds something brilliant to the orchestration and one more notch to the fortissimo. Numerous themes are entrusted to trumpets and trombones. The "statue" theme is for trombones, the first theme of the Finale for horns. The brasses are not restricted to a few powerful themes or quietly sustained passages; they often play at the same speed as the woodwinds.
Strings -- These are of an imposing number, to maintain equilibrium with the other groups: 16 first violins, 16 second violins, 14 violas, 12 cellos and 10 double basses. These figures represent a minimum. As in the majority of my works, apart from the broad lyric phrases and ensemble counterpoint, the strings are sometimes treated as groups of soloists. An example is the ninth movement, where 13 solo strings play 13 individual parts independently of the other voices of the orchestra.
Keyboard instruments -- Glockenspiel, celesta, vibraphone. These three, along with the piano and metallic percussion, form within the large orchestra a small orchestra, the sonority and role of which recall the gamelan of Bali.
Percussion -- Uppermost, the high-pitched triangle. Then the wood timbres: 3 temple blocks, 1 wood block. Metallic timbres from the high-pitched to the low: small Turkish cymbal, cymbals (1 suspended, 2 struck), Chinese cymbal, tam-tam. In the medium range: Basque drum and maracas. Skin timbres: snare drum, Provencal tambourine and, farthest down, the bass drum. further, 8 tubular bells. The percussion is governed by its role as "seasoner"; it plays counterpoints of duration and of true rhythmic themes - for example, the wood-block theme at the beginning of the fourth movement.
Soloists - Piano and Ondes Martenot -- The piano part is of such importance and its execution demands such extraordinary virtuosity that one might say the Turangalîla Symphony is almost a concerto for piano and orchestra. Long and brilliant cadenzas in the different movements draw together the elements of development and form part of the overall design. The cadenza which closes the fifth movement even surpasses in vehemence the shattering tutti which precedes it. The piano participates in the gamelan; it also plays some bird songs. All through the sixth part - Garden of Love's Sleep - it embroiders a counterpoint of bird songs over the "theme of love." One could not leave out these bird songs without destroying the piece itself. The piano enriches and completes the harmony with ostinato chords. It is sometimes treated percussively, notably in providing rhythmic canons. It clothes, varies and bejewels the orchestration with diverse touches - combined arpeggios, double notes in alternating hands, a melange of the extreme upper and lower registers, blending by pedal action, cascades of chords, tone clusters and the myriad effects indispensable to the life of both the small and large tuttis.
The Ondes Martenot also plays a large part. Everyone is aware of it in those moments of paroxysm when it dominates the fortissimo with its expressive and high-pitched voice. But it is also used in the serious and in the sweetly lyric passages, for velvety glissandi, for tone color and for echo themes. In the sixth movement the "theme of love" uses two special speakers of the Ondes. Finally, I have made extensive use of its metallic quality: for each sound there is a corresponding metallic resonance from within the speaker, giving it a halo of harmonics. Strange, mysterious, unreal in their sweetness, cruel, lacerating, terrifying in their strength, the metallic timbres are without doubt the most beautiful of the instrument. (Olivier Messiaen)


November Steps

Notes by Toru Takemitsu:

1. The composer should not concern himself with blending traditional Japanese instruments with the Western symphony orchestra. On the contrary, by counterposing the biwa and the shakuhachi to the orchestra, he should vivify the foreignness of the sound which is unique to these instruments.

2. Establishing a number of distinct auditory focuses within a musical composition is an objective facet of the business of composing. The composer also attempts to hear a single voice in the midst of numberless sounds.

3. The sounds of Western music dispose themselves along a horizontal. The sounds of the shakuhachi occur vertically, the way a tree grows.

4. Perhaps you have heard: The sound which a shakuhachi master hopes to achieve in performance, the consummate shakuhachi sound, is the sound the wind makes when it blows through a decaying bamboo grove.

5. First of all you must listen totally, open your ears wide to what you hear. Before long you will understand the aspirations of the sounds themselves.

6. It has been demonstrated that dolphins communicate not with their gibbering voices but with the varied intervals of silence between the sounds they emit - a provocative discovery.

7. Between Tokyo and New York there is a time difference: the orchestra is grouped as if in several time zones. With the entire "spectrum" of time in mind.

8. At the end of a performance it should not seem that a musical composition has come to an end. After all, which is more fun, a trip that has been planned meticulously, or one taken on the spur of the moment?

9. Most modern composers erect walls of sound, each with a mortar of his own ingenious making. But who inhabits all those rooms?

10. Eleven "steps" with no particular melodic unity. Like the music of the No Theater, the rhythm endlessly oscillates.

11. November Steps was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th Anniversary and is dedicated to that orchestra. It was first performed at Philharmonic Hall in November 1967.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: I. Introduction {6:17}

2. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: II. Chant d'amour 1 {8:07}

3. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: III. Turangalîla 1 {5:02}

Side 2

1. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: IV. Chant d'amour 2 {11:09}

2. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: V. Joie du sang des étoiles {6:16}

3. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: VI. Jardin du sommeil d'amour {11:35}

Side 3

1. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: VII. Turangalîla 2 {3:57}

2. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: VIII. Développement de l'amour {11:17}

3. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: IX. Turangalîla 3 {4:33}

4. Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony: X. Finale {7:00}

Side 4

1. Toru Takemitsu - November Steps {20:19}

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