Yuja Wang, Andris Nelsons and the BSO Mark a Messiaen Milestone

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons are joined by soloists Yuja Wang
and Cécile Lartigau in Messiaen’s epic Turangalîla-Symphonie

The recording is released digitally on 6 December 2024 to coincide with
the 75th anniversary of the work’s world premiere in Boston in December 1949

Listen to the thrilling fifth movement, Joie du sang des étoiles, here

“… the brilliant Yuja Wang … performed with agility, acuity, and above all, a keen understanding of the role the piano must play … The piano and ondes martenot are critical ensemble instruments more than they are vehicles for soloists, and Wang was duly assertive without being aggressive.”
The Boston Globe

“It was such an honor to join the Boston Symphony, Andris Nelsons, and Cécile Lartigau
for such an historic performance of Turangalîla. I hope that those who listen to
this recording will feel as exhilarated as I did during the breathtaking performances!”
Yuja Wang

Captured at Boston’s Symphony Hall in April 2024, this new Deutsche Grammophon recording presents Messiaen’s monumental Turangalîla-Symphonie. The work was one of the centrepieces of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s “Music of the Senses” Festival, aimed at expanding the audience experience through music that plays with colour, light, sound and time. The BSO and its Music Director Andris Nelsons were joined on stage by pianist and exclusive DG artist Yuja Wang and by Cécile Lartigau, one of today’s rare ondes Martenot players.

A first taste of their dazzling interpretation can be heard in the exuberant fifth movement, Joie du sang des étoiles, released on 15 November. The full recording will be released as a digital album on 6 December 2024, marking the 75th anniversary of the world premiere, given by the BSO and Leonard Bernstein on 2 December 1949. A physical release will follow in 2025.

The BSO is celebrating two other significant anniversaries this year – it is 150 years since the birth of Serge Koussevitzky, its legendary ninth Music Director, and 100 years since his appointment to that role. It was Koussevitzky who commissioned Turangalîla, giving Messiaen free rein by telling him, “Choose as many instruments as you desire, write a work as long as you wish and in the style you want.”

The result was this extraordinary, 10-movement symphony for large orchestra – including a vast array of percussion – with solo piano and ondes Martenot (an early electronic instrument). It was the perfect work for the BSO to programme in its festival, not only because of its origins, but also because Messiaen’s synaesthesia meant he saw colours when he heard or imagined sound. He called Turangalîla, which was inspired in part by the Tristan myth, “the most coloured” of his works and a “hymn to joy”. Under Nelsons’ baton, the BSO and the two virtuosic soloists reveal every facet of the work’s kaleidoscopic colours, heady harmonies and sweeping emotional drama.