If you've followed my channel, you could probably guess that this is one of my favorite pieces ever written: it's absolutely gorgeous (30:01!), absolutely terrifying, absolutely glorious, an absolute joy! And indeed, it's more than that. It's the first piece that made me truly obsessed, not just with the piece itself but also with Messiaen and all of his works; it has been a life-changing piece. Being able to hear Turangalîla for the first time performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra this year, being able to experience its raw power and ecstasy firsthand, galvanized me to finally make this video after starting it all the way back in 2017. Somehow, I never felt adequate to do this masterwork justice, and especially after the amount of work _Saint François_ was, I just kept delaying it. Though, in that time, I've learned a lot when it comes to score video making. So here it is finally, for Messiaen's 115th birthday. I hope you enjoy it! (Also, check out the Myung-Whun Chung and Chailly recordings; it was really hard deciding which one to pick. Cambreling goes for dramatic flair in this recording.)

@9827george

7 ай бұрын

I could say something similar! Debussy changed my life when I was 16, then came Messiaen with a recording from Turangalila and a performance of La Transfiguration in Bonn 1986! This was followed by the premiere of Stockhausen's Montag aus Licht in Cologne 1988, which once more changed my life!!

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

@@9827george I hope I get to see _La Transfiguration_ performed one day! There is a staging of _Saint François d'Assise_ in Geneva next year that is probably a can't miss for me

@9827george

7 ай бұрын

@@Cmaj7 true, you should go there! :) Where are you from? I live in Germany

@BenGabbay

7 ай бұрын

I was at the same TSO performance this year!! It made me all the more excited to see this video :)

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

Toronto?! Toronto under Ozawa was the only available recording in the early 1970s when I was in high school, and it positively blew me away! It was on 3 sides, coupled with Takemitsu's "November Steps". I bought the LPs for that piece after hearing it on the radio (those were the days), but it was this glorious agglomeration of musical miracles that I couldn't get out of my mind! Thank you Toronto! Thank you CMaj7! I've got my own score, but it's nice having you turn pages for me.

Messiaen forever. A giant of music.

It's actually scary how much your taste in music aligns with mine...

@aramzulumyan6380

7 ай бұрын

U should check Frank Zappa.

Joy of the blood of the stars is easly one of the best pieces ever

This piece changed my early life and music listening forever! Merci Messiaen! Merci Cmaj7!

Finally... Also a great Messiaen birthday tribute.

Best symphony ever written. Divine inspiration.

@remomazzetti8757

7 ай бұрын

That's only your opinion and not one shared by everyone. Some intelligent musicians such as myself think it's one of the most overrated symphonies ever written.

@florencelingaynemusic

7 ай бұрын

@@remomazzetti8757 you seem like fun!

@orgue2999

7 ай бұрын

@@remomazzetti8757 "Some intelligent musicians such as myself", KZread's comment is truly the funniest part of internet lmao

@larryheth8023

2 ай бұрын

easily the most incredible piece of music.ever written..way above the rite of spring et al.not even second,third,or fourth place pieces after this...thank you olivier and your inspiration.

@matejmoravek4580

2 ай бұрын

@@larryheth8023 Above the Rite? Really? Elaborate

Cmaj7 doing God's work

It's fascinating seeing the score. The complexity of the writing is mind-boggling. Turangalila is extraordinary, excessive, indulgent, erotic, fragrant, dancing, humorous - all adjectives under the sun - and I LOVE it. The piano part is insanely difficult - all those chords based around octotonic scales - must be so difficult to memorise let alone play. The piano cadenza in 3rds at the end of Movement V is stunning to watch (pianists hands flying around) and I love the two massive chords that end 5th and last movements. The chord at 1:18:13 is ear-splitting but it's the start of a natural progresion and resolution. The VI movement so serene. It really is a colossal masterpiece.

This masterpiece deserved a Cmaj7 video.

Love and other drugs: Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

It's funny how Messiaen always denied the piece was about physical love. He even removed the "carnal and awesome [ _terrible_ ]" text from movement 8. But moments like 36:11 make me really doubt that

@vallieplushie

7 ай бұрын

@@Cmaj7 "dans un délire de passion et de joie" is NOT very subtle....

Messiaen is a brilliant reflection of an era. It’s a phantom asteroid who returns to set his sights on sound art. A stupendous wave laden with paradoxes from which obscurantism and the irrational escape, hypnotic factors defying vulnerable souls in search of the infinity. His musical architecture is a translucid and short tunnel that leads to light 🤗🤠🥸

One of the masterpieces of the twentieth century! But the strings are really heavy in this performance; check out the recording by Thibaudet, Chailly & the Concertgebouw for a more fleet and refined account.

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

The piercing string sound is actually one of the aspects I love in this recording. There are of course some drawbacks to the recording, and the Chailly is definitely a good one as well

what a great use of Ondes Martenot!

first the Jesus regards and now this…. You are a literal godsend this is awesome

my mother actually loved this piece and there was not much classical music she liked and she hated most post-war music. she said the big moments with those streams of dense chords in piano and sweeping melodies on the onde reminded her both of the Warsaw Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue. mum had no musical education but clearly an ear because I see the point absolutely. this piece is quite unique in the 20th century - uses all sorts of arcane quasi-serial techniques but also has these jazzy bits, there's heaps of glittery percussion that must be thrilling to play if you were capable of playing it, the piano role alone is one of the craziest things ever written for live performance, but it also has gorgeously lush passages as beautiful as anything in the Prelude a "l'apres midi d'un faun" or La Mer, and it has marvellously catchy melodies to boot. when i was a teenager I had a synth i would patch up an onde-like sound and play it along with records of the piece. it is Messiaen's great claim to belonging in the repertoire: there is really no other music like this (except my equally beloved Troi Petites Liturgies, a piece which actually brings me to tears in some performances it is so beautiful. even my normie suburban mom liked Turangalila - she called the "Joi du sang" movement like cowboys in space and it has remained that forever for me. it always makes me think of the way music is used if there was an instrument i wish i could play it would be the ondes because it has the most interesting entire repertoire of almost any instrument. you could have a career playing this piece and it is usually the ondes playing that for me is the critical factor in whether i love a performance or not. it needs to be both perfectly in tune, in time and with the right expression is relentlessly weird and if you went to a live performance of it without ever hearing the piece before you'd be quite amazed by it I imagine. the ondes playing in this performance is incredibly good - her vibrato and tone is great and even the highest passages on the "ruban" are perfectly in tune (not always the case in some recordings). thanks for this, it's amazingly well done.

@porcinet1968

5 ай бұрын

OMG the way that ritardando from number 14 is played! i have never heard it done that way before, it works wonderfully and the slight pause for resonance (it is a harmonic sequence I have always adored) itis both clear but because of the timing of the pause and the precision of the playing as well it comes across as ecstatic in a very Scrabin-like manner. a gorgeous moment in a very beautiful recording. i love her Valerie's ondes playing in this so much. truly musical playing, with the right amount of slightly overripened vibrato and swoopiness to really sell the piece. it has to sound like the most beautiful thing ever rather than something to be dreaded every time it comes in. muraro is also excellent

A few days ago, I went to a performance of this piece with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Payare, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the piano and Cécile Lartigau at the Ondes Martenot. I booked tickets as soon as I learnt that they were performing this. I was practically in ecstasy for the whole performance. There were so many great moments, but I particularly remember 13:26 as probably the most beautiful maj7 chord I ever heard in my life. Glory and joy are, indeed, without end. I first discovered Messiaen when I stumbled upon your score video of La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, and I fell in love with his music ever since then. Thank you so much, Cmaj7, for making me discover my now-favourite composer!

Seventy-five years on, this astonishing piece still sounds avant-garde. I had the pleasure of hearing a performance in Dublin in the presence of the composer shortly before his death. Thanks for sharing.

@johnglass7383

3 ай бұрын

Wow! was he invited to come up on the stage?

@brendanward2991

3 ай бұрын

@@johnglass7383 He was.

Happy birthday Olivier Messiaen!

The greatest post-war symphony!

I heard this live in January 1974, Seiji Ozawa conducting the San Francisco Symphony, Yvonne Loriod at the piano and Jeanne Loriod at the Ondes Martenot, the composer present as well. An unforgettable experience! Messiaen had said that Turangalila was one part of a trilogy of pieces inspired by the Tristan legend, especially about the idea of a powerful love that leads inexorably to death. It was only after the composer's death that the deeper meaning of this piece came to be known. Messiaen's first wife, the violinist and composer Claire Delbos, developed a severe mental deterioration due to complications following an epidural. This resulted in extreme amnesia -- to the point where, when Messiaen brought her violin when she was hospitalized, she no longer had any idea what it was. She lingered in this state in a nursing home for decades, until her death. Meanwhile, the brilliant pianist Yvonne Loriod was in Messiaen's Analysis class at the Paris Conservatoire right from when he started teaching there after being released from the German Stalag (where he had written and premièred the Quartet for the End of Time). They soon became collaborators, premiering his Visions de l'Amen for two pianos, and him then continuing to write a series of works featuring her virtuoso skills. As Loriod admitted in interview after her husband's death, they grew to love each other, but it was "an impossible love," because he was married, and with their both being strictly devout Catholics, their love could never be admitted to, let alone consummated. Messiaen still loved his wife, and obviously held onto the hope that somehow her condition could be healed. Loriod said that Messiaen kept a photo of Delbos on his work desk at home for the rest of his life. So he was torn, between his love for his wife, even though she had become a stranger, and his love for Loriod. Thus he was compelled to write so passionately about a love that could only end in death -- whether his wife's, or his own. This work makes infinitely more sense to me now after I came to know this background. It explains the frequency of terrifying sounds, heard alongside over-the-top transports of joy: the piece is all about confronting death, and all the fear that entails, in the knowledge that this is where such a powerful love inexorably leads. Of course, after Delbos' death, Messiaen and Loriod did finally marry.

If you're reading this and you happen to find this music hard to get into (like I did the first time I tried to listen to it) I'd recommend listing to No. 5 "Joy of the Blood of the Stars" at 31:04 as a more accessible entry point. It's the first part of this I ever listened to that felt like something recognizably classical and "catchy," while still being truly boundary pushing and weird and totally Messiaen in every possible way! And I can't recommend L'Ascension by Messiaen enough as another Messiaen gateway drug! @Cmaj7 thank you so much for putting such hard work into this! This is a very dense score and you went to such a great extent editing it to make it as legible and clear as possible. Your passion for this glorious piece really shines through. (Is your copy of the score actually "sliced up" like this or did you also have to go through it and add the instruments to each slice of measures?)

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, I edited the score to separate the pages like that. Glad it's helpful!

the only thing that’s been holding me back from listening to this work has been the lack of a score video, thanks so much!

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

actually there is another score video, but the recording and score quality leave a lot to be desired...

Happy heavenly birthday, Messiaen, and thank you for posting this! My all time favorite piece of music probably

Thanks so much for uploading this. One of my goals is to hear this live.

Superbe...Merci à vous. 😎

Superhuman effort! I have this score in hard copy and it's as thick as a phone book. Well done. Also, excellent notes for each movement. This is a hard work to get one's head around. Thanks!

I've been wanting to see the score for this magnificent work for ages. Thank you for the upload. The score animation is flawless!

This is huge, what a fantastic video you've made! Thanks for your hard work, I deeply love Messiaen's music!

This ending… Jesus Christ it's so glorious

FINALLLYYYYYYY !!!! merci Cmaj7 :))))))

Can't thank you enough for videos like these. Your channel has really expanded my taste of music and I love nearly all of your uploads.

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

it IS an absolutely phenomenal piece, no two ways about it. Thanks for uploading it!

Congrats, well done with the editing!

INCREDIBLE STUFF

Great music. Love it

OMG A TURANGALÎLA-SYMPHONIE VID FROM Cmaj7?!?!?!?

Wow, this is huge. I saw this a while back with the Toronto Symphony, Marc-André Hamelin on piano, and Nathalie Forget on the ondes. That's an experience I'll never forget, and I highly implore anyone to get a ticket if they ever have the opportunity to see this mammoth live. Great upload Cmaj7, thank you!

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

Now that you mention it, I think they've recorded this for future release.

@composerjalen

7 ай бұрын

@@ejb7969 they have, that live recording was the concert I went to!

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

@@composerjalen Looks like it - "Marc-André Hamelin's 2023 Spring orchestral highlights include performances and recording of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony with the Toronto Symphony and Gustavo Gimeno"

34:55 - 36:11 That must have been one of the most brutal bass parts I've ever got to play. The divisi and page turns don't help!

@OrbiliusMagister

6 ай бұрын

I never understood how such demanding parts can be performed correctly: the double basses just go on and on with irregular arpeggios of five notes *divisi* staring each other to keep the right tempo, while the rest of the orchestra runs havoc all over the stage. Either you memorize your part and keep playing or you just play and pray.

This belongs to the list of great pieces i wait to hear for the first time. And live . So i won´t hear it yet ; ) I heard already the orchestral masterpiece of Messiaen: Revelations of the Otherside

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

His final large work - I was at the posthumous premiere in New York. Madame Messiaen took the bows. But this is even better. Younger, more outrageous, it was his first multi-movement monstrous miracle. You can sing many of rhe tunes - you won't get them out of your head.

@LearnCompositionOnline

6 ай бұрын

@@ejb7969 amazing I wait for i can hear it live at some hall in Viena. They are by the way also performing La Mer there now , i guess the Viena Philharmonic

Based

Hold up - isn't this what the mutant from Futurama is called... Turanga Leela......

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, Leela's named after this symphony. It's really the perfect namesake for the character, and actually where I first heard about this piece haha

Ethereal strings and the Ondes Martenot were very effectively used by Elmer Bernstein in his Ghostbuster and other sci-fi scores and now I can't unhear the associations.

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

Listen to this a few dozen times and your associations will change!

❤

For presentation purposes: III. 1st theme 14:39 Interruption 16:00 Statue theme 0:54 Dies Irae 16:15 A to oboe 16:55 Climax-ish 18:17 Almost coda 19:27 VIII. 06:22 beginning of love I Beginning w/ chord ostinati (listen through, also mode 3) 54:53 Start of middle section (scherzo-longing from end of IV-flower) 56:17 Development of scherzo to love to interruption of love 57:25 (repeat scherzo-longing-flower, do not play) Next development of scherzo to love ("cadences") 59:22 compare to interrupted love 57:54 scherzo development (then to hint at climax w/ mode 3 scale, only play until hint of climax) 1:00:20 only OCTATONIC scale brings to climax of love with brass in F# (let play to repeat at 2.36 then skip) 1:01:42 softer to transition to piano cadenza and then to repeat of beginning WITH statue theme this time in canon 1:03:40 to piano cadenza at 1:05:22 to final statue theme to tam tam

A giant of the music in the post Second World War.

Gosh, the Ondes Martenot just sounds so stunningly beautiful... Is there only one player here or are there several of them? I think I saw "solo" written somewhere in the Onde part so I got a little confused.

@Cmaj7

5 ай бұрын

It really can sing. There is only the 1 Onde. "Onde martenot solo" I think is just expressing that it should really be emphasized

@kalletorner4591

5 ай бұрын

@@Cmaj7 Yes, I thought so. Its amazing it can be heard so clearly even when the orchestra plays quite wildly!

The revised score is played but not shown - anyway, great job

@Cmaj7

7 ай бұрын

No, the score in the video has the revisions

DINGUERIE

This is interesting. I'm usually a fan of lush Romanticism. This, somehow, has that in spades despite my complete and total inability to guess what note might come next at any point. Most classical music written after 1920, in my experience, sounds totally random and lacks any sense of purpose or direction. Somehow this doesn't feel random at all. Every note has a reason. Thank you for giving me something to appreciate from an era I didn't think had anything to offer.

@camberr

7 ай бұрын

If you're a fan of Romanticism, there's a whole swath of Neo-Romantic composers (and similar) who you probably would get a kick out of. Jennifer Higdon, Takashi Yoshimatsu and Caroline Shaw (who is a bit more like a neo-medieval composer, but I would still count) are three good places to start. I'd probably start with blue cathedral, the Memo Flora piano concerto and the Partita for 8 Voices respectively. The Partita in particular might sound like random noises, but give it a shot, it's really cool.

@KenBreadbox

7 ай бұрын

@@camberr Thank you for this. My limit -- up until this, which is really extraordinary -- has been Rautavaara. I actually find him similar in that despite constant dissonance, you can tell each note is in its place.

@Ziad3195

7 ай бұрын

​@@KenBreadboxNo Ravel or Shostakovich?

@KenBreadbox

7 ай бұрын

@@Ziad3195 Love both, don't consider them near as as challenging.

@mcbill7352

7 ай бұрын

Have you tried John Adams? He's kind of a post minimalist

oeuvre à analyser pour en comprendre la complexité, je présume. Magnifiques moments, fête des timbres originaux

@ejb7969

7 ай бұрын

I believe you can comprehend much of it by ear! Many of his techniques are very clear, and very memorable after just a few hearings. That was my experience, anyway. I never get tired of hearing this piece, and I first heard it 50 years ago.

Aside from the brilliance of this work, Messiaen himself does not know what 'auditory maidenhood' is. His work still leans heavily on romantic music.

This symphony certainly has its moments, but the dense textures in many of the moments kind of ruins it for me. Am I missing something? Like is it supposed to be intentionally grotesque in the more dissonant parts?

@ukdavepianoman

7 ай бұрын

Depends what you mean by "grotesque" - some of it is very dissonant (heavily layered with big harmonic clashes) but I would say never ugly. But levels of dissonance is a subjective matter. Probably helps to listen to it a few times.

wow. there is already a version of this score on youtube from a full sized score. why bother making this from a small score? hmmm. but you do you.

@WEEBLLOM

7 ай бұрын

Different recording

@AndreyRubtsovRU

7 ай бұрын

@@WEEBLLOMyeah but much better score :-)

@WEEBLLOM

7 ай бұрын

@@AndreyRubtsovRU i like this one more

@AndreyRubtsovRU

7 ай бұрын

@@WEEBLLOM sure

Too systematic, not enough breathing space.

@B-fq7ff

2 ай бұрын

do you feel better now after complaining?

@FelipevonMontfort

2 ай бұрын

@@B-fq7ff My statement is clearly not a complaint and you seem to take it as a personal offense.

This genuinely sucks😅

@Quim141

Ай бұрын

You suck

@coasterdragon155

17 күн бұрын

Nuh uh

@James-ll3jb

15 күн бұрын

@@coasterdragon155 yuh huh lol

As a percussionist, this is as good as it gets.