Prom 15: Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony

Live at the BBC Proms: BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Nicholas Collon in Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony and the world premiere of Anna Clyne's 'The Gorgeous Nothings'.

Presented by Tom McKinney, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Anna Clyne: The Gorgeous Nothings

c. 8.00pm
INTERVAL: The Listening Service - It made Pierre Boulez want to vomit, Francis Poulenc thought it was atrocious and Igor Stravinsky said all you needed to write it was enough manuscript paper. But its composer wrote all 80 minutes of it as a love song, and a hymn to joy. Tom Service asks "just what is Olivier Messiaen’s epic Turangalila Symphony, premiered in 1949 by Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; why did it divide opinion so much, and what does it mean today?”

c.8.20pm
Olivier Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony

The Swingles
Steven Osborne (piano)
Cynthia Millar (ondes Martinot)
BBC Philharmonic
Nicholas Collon (conductor)

The composer and critic Virgil Thomson described Oliver Messiaen's music as 'convulsive, ecstatic, cataclysmic, terrifying and unreal'. All converge in the most vibrant and unignorable symphony of the 20th century: Messiaen's 'Turangalîla Symphony'. Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic are joined by pianist Steven Osborne and ondes Martinot virtuoso Cynthia Millar to perform a work that opens up the heavens even as it brings down the house, after the tantalising prospect of a world premiere by Anna Clyne. The BBC Philharmonic is joined by The Swingles for 'The Gorgeous Nothings', written specially for the Proms; the composer's response to the 'spellbinding wordsmithery' of American poet Emily Dickinson, scored for orchestra, amplified voices and real-time electronic processing.