David Geffen
Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra Rear
(Seat PP107, $32.50.)
Program
Turangalila-symphonie
(1946-48, rev. 1990) by Messiaen (1908-92).
I skipped this
concert when I did our CYO subscription for this season, even though Yuja Wang
and Salonen were on the program, as it didn’t make it high enough in the list
of concerts I wanted to see. A couple of
weeks ago we got an email advertising seats for $29, and since we would be
staying in Jersey City this evening, we decided to go for it.
Nowadys New York
Philharmonic nickels and dimes its customers.
Perhaps it is necessary due to financial considerations, but for the two
tickets we also had to pay a $7 facility fee, and a $7.5 service fee for the
privilege of printing at home (it would be $15 for box office pickup), so the
total for the two tickets comes to $72.50.
In this instance it was worth it.
Our seats, third row from the last, had surprisingly good acoustics;
they are directly below the first tier, where seats costs a lot more. While I couldn’t really follow the music, I
found it engaging for the entire 75 or so minutes (if not entire, at least
most.) Compared to other music written
in the mid-twentieth century, it was an unexpected but pleasant experience.
The Playbill
contains some interesting facts about Messiaen and the piece, which is worth
repeating here. Messiaen’s music has two
major characteristics: meditations related to Roman Catholic theology, and inspirations
from birdsong. Other focal points include
complicated rhythmic relations, and the other is carnal love as embodied in the
tale of Tristan and Isolde. Messiaen
described Turangatila-symphonie as “a love song. It is also a hymn to joy … a joy that is
superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited.” He also provided a simple
description at the work’s Boston premiere, conducted by Leonard Bernstein: “The
work is a song of love … it is unnecessary to provide further explanation.” The Sanskrit words Taranga and Lila have the respective
meaning of “tempo, pace of a swift horse” and “life-force, the act of creation,
rhythm, and movement.” Messiaen claims
neither the modes nor the rhythms used are borrowed from Hindu folk music.
Before
introducing the soloists, Salonen spent about ten minutes talking about the
program. Not having taken any notes,
there may be errors in my recollection.
He first characterized the music as being “fresh” all the time, and
cited other works of this nature: Eroica, Symphonie Fantastique, Rite of
Spring, and Tristan and Isolde, saying that is every composer’s dream. He also described how Messiaen considered
every note to be important, citing as an example the time he spent at Messiaen’s
apartment, after going through every note on a page, Messiaen would then turn
to p. 2 (it was quite funny the way Salonen described it.) Evidently Messiaen was in love with someone
(perhaps Yvonne Loriod, who premiered this work,) but his Catholic background
would make marriage impossible (the two eventually married, though.) Finally, while the piece started with human
love, it eventually turned to the planets and the cosmos.
Curtain Call after the performance. Yuja Wang is the one in the green dress, everyone else wore black. The Ondes Martenot can barely be made out to the right of the piano.
This was the
work for a large orchestra. In the front
of the stage there was a xylophone (vibraphone), two celestes, a piano, and the
ondes Martenot. In the back I counted
another seven or eight percussionists, also I couldn’t tell how the different
instruments were placed. The bass drum
had a very prominent position: center, back, and high on a platform. Everyone showed up, including the
concertmaster Frank Huang. The movements
were quite well demarcated: (i) Introduction, (ii) Chant d’amour I, (iii) Turangalila
I, (iv) Chant d’amour II, (v) Joie du sang des etoiles, (vi) Jardin du sommeil
d’amour, (vii) Turangalila II, (viii) Developpement de l’amour, (ix)
Turangalila III, and (x) Final. Perhaps
the only insightful thing I can say is that the last movement sounded most
conventional, and felt a bit out of place in relation to the other movements.
The piano had a
variety of roles throughout the piece.
Sometimes it clearly was the solo instrument, with the pianist pounding
out virtuoso passages in a dialog with the orchestra, sometimes it faded into
being part of the music. All I could
tell was Yuja Wang had quite a bit of work out throughout the 75 or so minutes. She needed the music in front of her (who can
blame her) but managed to turned the pages by herself. Many passages were doubled up by the
celestas.
To my surprise,
this wasn’t my first encounter with the ondes Martenot, an electronic
instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The best way I can describe its sound is that
of a songbird, or the wailing of a friendly ghost. A search of the web indicates other sounds
made by this instrument, but I couldn’t hear them during the performance, if
they had been made at all. The soloist
was quite still for the entire performance.
In any case, the instrument wasn’t as prominently featured in the music
as the piano.
The Ondes Martenot.
I was asked by
CS whether this was a concert worth going.
I told him yes, not because I could get the music, but because it was an
interesting experience, with a large orchestra, complex sounds, and exposure to
new or rarely used instruments. I did
suggest not to have a seat in the front of the auditorium since it won’t
provide a view of the full orchestra.
Further, not too many orchestras are equipped to handle a work that is
as ambitious as this. And the whole
experience is captivating enough that I didn’t think 75 minutes of it was too
much; Anne drew her line at 60 minutes, though.
The New YorkTimes reviewer attended the first performance.
Evidently Salonen had different things to say on that occasion,
including brief descriptions of each of the movements. While the reviewer had good things to say, it
was a surprisingly short review, covering only limited parts of the piece.
We will be
vacating our Jersey City apartment the next day. This is the last event we could make use of
the convenience of the apartment. We
stopped by Brookfield Mall for dinner before continuing onto Lincoln Center.
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