Turangalila-symphonie - Messiaen
Virgil Thomson once memorably categorised Messiaen as being one of those composers who had "the determination to produce somewhere in every piece an apotheosis destined at once to open up the heavens and to bring down the house".
Bringing down the house is certainly the least you can expect of the Turangalila-symphonie, a work commissioned by Koussevitzky and premiered half a century ago by the Boston Sym phony Orchestra under Bern stein (the 50th anniversary of the premiere is December 2nd).
The 10-movement piece calls for an orchestra that's large and exotic, the surface colourfully decked out with glittering percussion (especially glockenspiel, celesta and vibraphone), a busy and brilliant piano part (full of clustery chords and bird songs), and the sweet, sliding sounds of an ondes Martenot (an electronic instrument of the 1920s, which French composers have kept alive).
The symphony is an extravagant love song, an extended indulgence of the spirit and the senses - the heavens that might open here are more earthly and corporeal than is typical in Messiaen's output.
The symphony has been heard twice in Dublin, with the composer present on both occasions. But Friday's performance at the Waterfront Hall was the first in Northern Ireland, a spectacular event to open the Belfast Festival, to be sure, but not striving for the uniqueness that was the hallmark of the major music events at last year's festival.
In spite of some stiffening with deputies, the size of the Ulster Orchestra proved a problem for the conductor, Thierry Fischer. The sheer mass and presence of string tone that's required was simply not there most of the time, and the Ulster Orchestra's brass players, not known for their shyness at the best of times, were not going to stint on an occasion like this.
As a result, it was in the softer and more reflective moments that the music sounded fully at its best. But Turangalila is a robust piece, and there were few in the hall, I imagine, who felt that the twin targets outlined by Thomson weren't satisfactorily met.
