richard vodden’s blog

Last weekend I played Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie with the Rehearsal Orchestra. Described by the composer as “a song of love; a hymn to the superhuman joy that transcends everything”, Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony is characterised by voluptuous orchestration, wealth of melody, and fiendishly difficult parts for all involved, from the piano and onde martenot soloists to the huge percussion section. Any appearance of the piece is an occasion worthy of note .

It really was rather exciting. Not only because I was easily the least competent brass player there, and possibly the least competent wind player but also because of the shear size of the whole thing. There were probably 100 musicians including 4 soloists, 13 brass players, 10 percussionists and 14 wind players – it was huge

Also worthy of note is the Onde Martenot. Which is a really marvelous thing. Its responsible for the very odd, almost vocal sounds, in the original Star Trek sound track, and also features a lot in RadioHead’s KidA and Amnesiac albums.