Opening concert

Imagine the stage of the Auditorium filled with a huge orchestra, and in front of it a grand piano and that magical instrument, the ondes Martenot. And all these fine musicians performing an impressive orchestral epic in ten movements – an extraordinary symphony, generous and passionate, devoid of the avant-garde rough edges of its time. ‘A love song’, but also ‘a hymn to joy – superhuman, overflowing, dazzling and boundless’: such is the *Turangalîla-Symphonie* according to its composer, Olivier Messiaen. A monument worthy of America, which hosted its premiere – the score, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein in 1949. According to Messiaen, it was ‘the most melodic, the warmest, the most dynamic, the most colourful’ of all the works he had written up to that point. The title comes from Sanskrit and means ‘at once a love song, a hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death’. Blending Hindu mysticism with the Christian faith, shifting from soaring sounds to irrepressible rhythmic trances, the Turangalîla Symphony is a sublime sanctification of love.

Programme
Olivier Messiaen, Turangalîla Symphony

Line-up
Lyon National Orchestra
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, conductor
Pierre Thibout, piano
Cécile Lartigau, ondes Martenot

In partnership with the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts, to mark the ‘Musée sentimental’ exhibition.