The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra marked its centenary with a performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony under their principal conductor Joanna MacGregor – only the fourth music director in the orchestra’s 100-year history. MacGregor herself is a familiar interpreter of the obbligato piano part, which here was played by her former pupil, Australian pianist-composer Joseph Havlat, while MacGregor conducted the symphony with considerable fire and brilliance. Cynthia Millar, meanwhile, was the ondes martenot soloist.
Completed in 1948, and inspired by Messiaen’s fascination with various versions of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, Turangalîla is essentially an examination of sexual and spiritual love, in which consuming desire can be seen at once as affording access to the divine and bringing in its wake the potential for suffering or destruction. Though a devout Catholic, Messiaen was no prude, and music of deep sensuality and carnality gives way throughout to ecstatic dances of cosmic jubilation and moments of incipient menace.
