PROGRAMA

Aficionados have been looking forward to these weeks immensely, and they
have reason to as the musikfest berlin 08 assembles some of the worlds
most outstanding orchestras, lead by the Berliner Philharmoniker and their
principle conductor Sir Simon Rattle. This season Sir Simon and his musicians
have chosen compositions for which the term key works seems rather
inadequate: does it really pay tribute to Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde?
Hardly. The work is much more than a key. And the Turangalla Symphony by
Olivier Messiaen, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated by the music world
this year, stands like a monolith. Presenting both works together in a concert
programme (although obviously not the complete Tristan, only the prelude to
Act 1 and Isoldes Liebestod), is a wonderful idea..
GUA DEL PROGRAMA

Love-Songs
Music Dramas by Wagner and Messiaen
The tragic conflict in Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde,first performed in 1865 in
Munich, is largely played out, not through an intensification of verbal language or
situations, but rather in this immense works extraordinarily symphonic conception (which
begs the question: is it really an opera at all?). An exception is the lovers great dialogue in
Act II, their intimate nocturnal communion so far removed from the external world into
and out of which everything flows. In the final act there remains only one possibility: the
death of love or love-death a death outside of time and space.
Tristan und Isolde is arguably Wagners most perfectly realized composition, a drama that
succeeds in uniting two opposing forces: overflowing life and a deeply internalized longing
for death. These energies and the lovers emotional states are already encapsulated in the
Prelude, based on a four-note chromatic phrase first heard on the oboe. More critical ink
has been spilled over this extraordinary composition, whose harmonic audacity is often
credited with ushering in modern music, than perhaps any other in history. Berlioz, who
confessed in 1860, that he hadnt the slightest idea of what the composer intended, heard it
as a slow piece, beginning pp, rising gradually to ff and then subsiding into the quiet of the
opening, with no other theme than a sort of chromatic moan, but full of dissonances, whose
cruelty is further accentuated by long appoggiaturas which completely replace the true
harmony-note. Wagner, writing in the same year, described the introduction to his love
drama as one long breath in which unfulfilled longing swells from the first gentle
tremor of attraction, through half-heaved sighs, hopes and fears, laments and wishes, joy
and torment, to a resolute attempt to find the opening of a path for the heart into the sea of
endless loves delight. In vain! Its power spent, the heart sinks back to pine of its desire
desire without attainment.

Olivier Messiaen, possessor of Wagnerscores and admirer of the music since childhood,
composed his Turangalla Symphony the second work in a trilogy based on the Tristan
and Isolde myth in 1948 to a commission from Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere at Symphony Hall on 2
December 1949.
The name Turangalla is Sanskrit, a combination of lla,meaning play or game in the
sense of divine action upon the cosmos, the play of creation and of destruction but also
meaning love,and turanga: time that passes like a galloping horse and flows like the
sand in an hourglass. Messiaen, for whom the most important things were, in order, God,
love and nature, called it a song of love and a hymn of joy: this vast work for monster
orchestra with enormous percussion section, coloured by the electronic whistling and
shrieking of the ondes martenot, and a heroically demanding solo piano part, written for
Yvonne Loriod, one of Messiaens composition pupils and later his second wife.
There are ten movements in the Turangalla Symphony. The Introduction,in two sections
linked by a piano cadenza, presents two of the works main musical ideas, the
monumental statue theme introduced by trombones and tubas, supported by the
first appearance of the piano and ondes martenot, and the delicate flower theme,
briefly introduced by two clarinets. Chant damour 1: The first song of love alternates
two violently contrasting aspects, carnal passion (trumpets) and tender idealism (ondes
martenot and strings).Turangalla 1:An episodic movement based on three themes gently
nostalgic (ondes martenot, clarinet); powerful (heavy brass and jangling gamelan); lyrical
(oboe with clarinet and flute).Chantdamour 2:A moderately paced movement with two
contrasting ideas (heard first in succession, then superimposed). Before the serene ending, a
brief piano cadenza ushers in a recall of the flower and statue themes. Joie du sang des
toiles: The scherzo movement brings an ecstatic climax, a frenzied African dance
(Messiaen) alternating with a rhythmically complex trio section and ending with the statue
theme in triumph. Jardin du sommeil damour: The symphonys slow movement, with
the love theme on ondes martenot and muted strings, ornamented by vibraphone and
glockenspiel and piano birdsong. Messiaen writes: The two lovers are immersed in the
sleep of love. A landscape has emanated from them. The garden which surrounds them is
called Tristan; the garden which surrounds them is called Isolde. This garden is full of
light and shade, of plants and new flowers, of brightly coloured and melodious birds
Time flows on, forgotten, the lovers are outside time. Let us not wake them. Turangalla
2: A brief, sinister movement, introduced by a piano cadenza, with percussion interludes
and featuring a recurring fan idea (ondes martenot, trombones) that opens and closes.
Dveloppement de lamour: The development of the symphonys main themes and of the
love between Tristan and Isolde. Turangalla 3: Variations on a theme announced by the
clarinet but dominated by percussion playing complex rhythmic layers on a cushion of
strings. Final: In sonata form with a jubilant brass fanfare as first subject and a quick,
barely recognizable version of the love theme (ondes martenot and strings) as second
subject. In the coda, the love theme at its normal slow tempo emerges in full glory.

BIOGRAFAS

Pierre-Laurent Aimard was born in Lyon in 1957 and studied with Yvonne Loriod and
Maria Curcio at the Paris Conservatoire. He won the 1973 International Messiaen
Competition and with that was launched on his international career. For eighteen years he
worked as solo pianist with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, taking part in countless world
premieres and establishing a reputation for himself as one of the leading interpreters of
contemporary music. Known especially for his unusual take on a repertory deemed
familiar, he is also a committed teacher and communicator, holding teaching posts in Paris
and Cologne and doing much to introduce audiences to works of all periods and to currents
in new music. Among his awards are a Grammy and an ECHO Klassik Prize. In 2005 the
Royal Philharmonic Society voted him Instrumentalist of the Year, an accolade that was
bestowed on him again in 2007, this time by Musical America. In 2008 he served as artistic
director of the Messiaen Festival held at Londons Southbank Centre. He made his
Philharmonie debut in mid-December 1997 within the framework of a piano recital
organized by the Berliner Philharmoniker and since then has returned many times for the
orchestras symphony and chamber concerts as well as giving solo recitals. During the
2006/07 season he was the orchestras pianist in residence.
Tristan Murail was born in Le Havre. After taking courses in Arabic, economics and
political science, he studied composition with Olivier Messiaen in Paris between 1967 and
1971, while also attending the ondes martenot class of Jeanne Loriod and Maurice
Martenot. He won the Paris Conservatoires Prix de Rome in 1971, bringing him into close
contact with Giacinto Scelsi, whose research into the acoustic properties of sound had a
profound effect on his own development. In 1973 he joined forces with a number of other
composers and interpreters to form LItinraire, a Paris-based ensemble dedicated to
establishing new links between traditional instruments and electronic music. His own
compositions are examples of spectral music. The holder of many awards, including a
Grand Prix du Disque and membership of the Acadmie Franaise, he taught at the Paris
Conservatoire and the prestigious Paris-based IRCAM, before being appointed professor of
composition at Columbia University, New York, in 1997. As a performer on the ondes
martenot he appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker as long ago as 1977 in a
performance of Varses Ecuatorial under Hans Zender. His most recent appearance was in
late September 2002, when he took part in performances of Messiaens Trois petites
liturgies de la Prsence Divine under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.