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{{short description|Musical work by Olivier Messiaen}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=OctoberFebruary 20122021}} {{Infobox musical composition|name=Turangalîla-Symphonie|type=|composer=[[Olivier Messiaen]]|image=Olivier Messiaen (1986).jpg|alt=|caption=Olivier Messiaen in 1986|other_name=|key=|opus=|period=[[20th-century music]]|genre=|composed=1946–1948 (rev. 1990)|duration=about 80 minutes|movements=Ten|scoring=Large [[orchestra]]|premiere_date=2 December 1949|premiere_conductor=[[Leonard Bernstein]]|premiere_location=[[Boston]]|premiere_performers=[[Boston Symphony Orchestra]]<br>[[Yvonne Loriod]] (piano)<br>[[Ginette Martenot]] ([[ondes Martenot]])|misc=}}The '''''Turangalîla-Symphonie''''' is a large-scale piece of orchestral music by [[Olivier Messiaen]] (1908–92). It was written from 1946 to 1948 on a commission by [[Serge Koussevitzky]] for the [[Boston Symphony Orchestra]].
 
The premiere was in Boston on 2 December 1949, conducted by [[Leonard Bernstein]]. The commission did not specify the duration, orchestral requirements or style of the piece, leaving the decisions to the composer.<ref>Program notes provided with the [[Naxos Records]] recording by the [[Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra]] with [[François Weigel]] (piano), [[Thomas Bloch]] ([[ondes Martenot]]) and [[Antoni Wit]] (conductor).</ref> Koussevitzky was billed to conduct the premiere, but fell ill, and the task fell to the young Bernstein.<ref>Thomas Barker, "The Social and Aesthetic Situation of Olivier Messiaen's Religious Music: Turangalîla-Symphonie." ''International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music''. 43, no. 1 (2012): 53–70; citation on 53</ref> Bernstein has been described as "the ideal conductor for it, and it made Messiaen's name more widely known".<ref>{{cite book|author=Andrew Ford|title=Try Whistling This: Writings about Music|year=2012|publisher=Black Inc.|location=Collingwood, Victoria.|isbn=9781863955713|page=261}}</ref> [[Yvonne Loriod]], who later became Messiaen's second wife, was the piano soloist, and [[Ginette Martenot]] played the [[ondes Martenot]] for the first and several subsequent performances.
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Although the concept of a rhythmic scale corresponding to the chromatic scale of pitches occurs in Messiaen's work as early as 1944, in the ''[[Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus]]'', the arrangement of such durations into a fixed series occurs for the first time in the opening episode of the movement "Turangalîla 2" in this work, and is an important historical step toward the concept of [[serialism|integral serialism]].<ref>[[Robert Sherlaw Johnson]], ''Messiaen'', revised and updated edition (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989): 94, 192.</ref>
 
The title of the work, and those of its movements, were a late addition to the project, chosen after Messiaen made a list of the work's movements. He described the name in his letters from 1947–19481947 to 1948.<ref>Hill 2005, 172</ref> He derived the title from two [[Sanskrit]] words, {{transl|sa|turanga}} and [[Lila (Hinduism)|{{transl|sa|IAST|līlā}}]], which he explained thus:<ref name="Chung CD notes">{{Cite AV media notes |title=Turangalîla-Symphonie |others=[[Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille]], [[Myung-whun Chung]], Yvonne Loriod, Jean Loriod |year=2004 |orig-year=1991 |first=Olivier |last=Messiaen |url=https://archive.org/details/cd_messiaen-turangalla-symphonie_olivier-messiaen-orchestre-de-lopra-bastil |page=1 |type=CD liner booklet |publisher=[[Deutsche Grammophon]] |id=DG 431 781–2 }}; {{cite web |last1=Page |first1=Tim |author-link=Tim Page (music critic) |title=Live Online: Classical Music Forum |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/02/music/page022002.htm |work=The Washington Post |access-date=11 July 2020 |date=20 February 2002}}</ref>
:"[[Lila (Hinduism)|Lîla]]" literally means play —– but play in the sense of the divine action upon the cosmos, the play of creation, destruction, reconstruction, the play of life and death. "Lila" is also love. "Turanga": this is the time that runs, like a galloping horse; this is time that flows, like sand in an hourglass. "Turanga" is movement and rhythm. "Turangalîla" therefore means all at once love song, hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death.
 
Messiaen described the joy of Turangalîla as "superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited".<ref name="Chung CD notes"/> He revised the work in 1990.<ref name="score"/>
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