{"id":14415,"date":"2016-12-06T11:05:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T19:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=14415"},"modified":"2016-12-06T11:05:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T19:05:37","slug":"time-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/12\/06\/time-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Time-play"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Video projections by Rose Bond for the OSO performances of Messiaen’s Turangal\u00eela Symphonie. Photo: Jacobe Wade.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This past weekend I played Olivier Messiaen’s\u00a0Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie<\/em>, a piece\u00a0that I will, in all likelihood, never get to perform again. That’s not something that one says lightly, for the career of an orchestral musician, by necessity (and for better or worse), involves playing a relatively small core of works over and over again. For lovers of this epic, ecstatic, and gargantuan piece, this is the second time to hear this work in this decade, as the Seattle Symphony performed the piece for the first time in its history back in 2013.<\/p>\n

For me, it was only on our third performance Monday evening that I felt like I could truly enjoy this piece. Why? Well, it presents many challenges to the performer. First is its sheer length. The viola part is 66 pages long. The piece has 10 movements, of which the fifth, entitled\u00a0Joie du sang des \u00e9toiles (Joy of the blood of the stars)<\/em>, is fully 14 pages long! Second is the harmonic complexity and the complexity of the rhythmic writing. Due to his theory of Modes of Limited Transposition<\/a><\/em>, Messiaen takes his motives and repeats them on several different pitch levels (or modes).\u00a0Messiaen also enjoys taking his motives and sliding them off of\u00a0the beat, usually by a small amount (a sixteenth-note or eighth-note, depending upon the meter and tempo), and this keeps one on one’s toes constantly. Combine these two factors, and you’ve got a lot of music to keep track of, and it means you are learning essentially the same material over and over again, and need to remember which is coming up when (and often it is coming at you a breakneck speed).<\/p>\n

But once you get through all of this, what an amazing journey it is! As Oregon is one of the states where recreation marijuana is legalized, I’d say this piece is one that might be best enjoyed in an altered state, especially with Rose Bond’s video art that was projected around the hall for these performances. I’d highly recommend against performing the piece in an altered state, however! The sheer orchestral color, texture, and volume (!) is truly unmatched in the orchestral repertoire (except perhaps for Varese’s\u00a0Am\u00e9riques<\/em>). We had the exceptional soloistic talents of pianist Stephen Osborn and ondes martenot player Cynthia Millar, and a crack team of 10 percussionists that made everything sparkle. I may never again hear the tam tam played so loudly in my life! It was a spectacular run of performances, and one I will fondly\u00a0remember.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to learn more about the\u00a0Turangal\u00eela Symphonie<\/em>, I’d recommend this article from the LA Philharmonic’s website:\u00a0http:\/\/www.laphil.com\/philpedia\/music\/turangalila-symphonie-olivier-messiaen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I played Olivier Messiaen’s Turangal\u00eela-Symphonie, a piece that I will, in all likelihood, never get to perform again. That’s not something that one says lightly, for the career of an orchestral musician, by necessity (and for better or worse), involves playing a relatively small core of works over and over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[3772,3823,3668,3662,3824],"class_list":["post-14415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-3772","tag-messiaen","tag-oregon-symphony","tag-portland","tag-turangalila"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3Kv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3107,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/12\/cirque-de-la-symphonie\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":0},"title":"cirque de la symphonie","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo: \u00a9 Charles Noble If you haven't committed to some activity this evening or Sunday afternoon, get yourself to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall for our Cirque de la Symphonie show.\u00a0 It's mind-blowing!\u00a0 I wish that I could just watch the amazing acrobatics and physical skill of the performers, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_2898","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/IMG_2898-400x533.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5597,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/11\/27\/cirque-de-la-symphonie-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":1},"title":"cirque de la symphonie","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been down for the count with whatever bug is going around these days, so I missed this morning's rehearsal and won't be at tonight's performance, but this photo (taken by OSO pianist Carol Rich) proves that you'll be missing some amazing stuff (including an aerial violinist playing Vivaldi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/78234_1724693158698_1279460762_1854492_1981064_o-266x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7292,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/07\/2012-2013-season-announcement-roundup\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":2},"title":"2012-2013 season announcement roundup","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"February is the month in which most orchestras start their new subscription campaigns with their next-season announcements. I haven't really paid much attention to what's being programmed outside of my own orchestra, but I thought that it would be interesting to take a look at the seasons and see if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "programming"","block_context":{"text":"programming","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/programming-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4101,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/24\/fantastic-symphony-orchestra\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":3},"title":"fantastic symphony (orchestra)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been catching up with performances by the Berlin Philharmonic via my web subscription lately, and here's one of their free preview clips from their performance of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique - and it's fantastic, indeed! (You'll note that, like our recent performance, they use the coronet part in the \"Ball\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1129,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/15\/viola-viola\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":4},"title":"viola, viola","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight I just finished a rehearsal with my longtime friend and stand partner, OSO principal violist Jo\u00ebl Belgique, of George Benjamin's 1997 work for two violas, Viola, viola. It's our second time through, and I'm reminded of an aphorism often cited by our pianist friend Cary Lewis, namely that no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contemporary"","block_context":{"text":"contemporary","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/contemporary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/gb_vlavla_sm-400x249.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5314,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/16\/gala-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":14415,"position":5},"title":"gala night!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight marks the official opening of the Oregon Symphony season - it's the gala concert with violin soloist Joshua Bell.\u00a0 The concert is selling well, but there seem to be tickets at all price levels available, so grab one or two quickly if you're so inclined. The Lalo Symphonie Espagnole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Joshua-Bell-photo-002-e1265300723916.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}