Turangalîla-⁠Symphonie

Jardin du sommeil d’amour follows Joie du sang des étoiles, a long dance, and comes before Turangalîla 2. The Vega labels give its length as 10′05″.

Messiaen’s programme note calls the melody of this movement long and slow, for ondes Martenot and strings, decorated by vibraphone, glockenspiel and the piano’s birdsong. It is the third of his four cyclic themes, the love theme.

Messiaen’s note on the Vega sleeve says Yvonne Loriod played the solo piano part at every performance, whoever conducted. Her sister Jeanne plays the ondes Martenot on this record. Yvonne became Messiaen’s second wife in 1961.

Serge Koussevitzky commissioned the symphony for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Messiaen says on the Vega sleeve that he wrote and orchestrated it between 17 July 1946 and 29 November 1948.

Leonard Bernstein conducted the first performance in Symphony Hall, Boston, on 2 December 1949. Loriod played the piano and Ginette Martenot the ondes Martenot. Koussevitzky, who had been scheduled to conduct, was ill.

Messiaen’s note on the eighth movement, Développement de l’amour, says it develops the three cyclic themes. In the Finale he names two themes, a fanfare for trumpets and horns and the love theme, and bases the coda on the love theme.

The Vega labels carry the date 1962. Jean Roy’s guide to contemporary French music, also of 1962, lists Maurice Le Roux’s Turangalîla with the Orchestre National de la R.T.F. as a two-disc Vega set.

The last stretch of the movement is its quietest. The sleeve timing of 10′05″ includes it, and Turangalîla 2 follows on the same record side.