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  • Thirty plus years after first hearing this work, it still just ROCKS! Wonderful joyous ecstatic completely over the top lovely child-like Messiaen. Just Terrific.

  • 2:27 =  EPIC ondes martenot moment!!

  • The beginning kinda sounds like the Mario theme. xD

  • Oh gosh, I wish I'd been there. This is simply magnificent.

  • Matt Groening made Leela's name a pun based on this symphony... Or atleast that's what it says on Futurama Wiki hahaha

  • I'm only here because krallice was compared to this I'm assuming composer.

  • I'm only here because I love Futurama, and I read that this could be the source of Turanga Leela's name.

  • @mMmmc0ffee @KillerWhaleCupcake I love Futurama, and I'm a Messiaen fan. They really aren't that crazy of a pairing! Matt Groening puts a lot of classical music allusions in his cartoons, so I wouldn't be surprised if he really was a Messiaen fan and named the Futurama character after this piece.

  • I like the opening theme of the composition... however, I find the middle section overly notated. Maybe I'm not used to Mesiaen's work yet, but, theorically, there's should be a slow, lyrical melody to contrast with the flourished opening. My ear gets a little weary with all these constant ostinatic vines (Piano + Flutes and Basses) countering against the reprised theme (Piano-Brass-Piano-Horn+Woodwi­nd) at 3:42

    Anyway, they are just a personal opinion from an amatuer of Mesiaen's music.

  • @frozinfire Oh god! Thats the bit I like the most! Thats what makes me come back to this piece again and again.

  • Chilled to the bone... And this is just a Youth orchestra... someone hold me... soo damn beautiful!!!

  • You should tag this video under "Joie du Sang des Etoiles." It took me forever to find a quality recording, and this one is the highest of youtube and itunes alike, in my opinion. Please make it more recognizable as this movement, for all our fellow youtubers!!!

  • @darkthunderz13 It's brilliant isn't it! 

  • is it just me or the beginning sounds like a opening to a talkshow?

  • @RMLLcrazy A talkshow at the edge of the 5th dimension aired by incomprehensible lifeforms, yes

  • I mean, I know that piece inside out, but ...

    everytime I hear this recording ... with all these young musicians ... performing one of my favourites ... it gives me the creeps. Great!!!

  • Absolutely exhilarating!

  • I WISH OLIVIER WOULD HAVE MET LIL B THE BASED GOD.... THEY WOULD HAVE COMPOSED THE GREATEST PIRECES !!!! I LOVE MUSICIC BUT I DONT BELIEVE IN GOD... BUT I PRAY TO THIS STRANGE BEEING CALLED GOD THAT HE7SHE LETS ME MEET ONE OF EM WHEN I AM DEAD ::: watch?v=Lijjs58bo4U

  • You know, I searched for Messiaen in the list of top 25 composers of 21th century.At first, I decided to listen to listen to a piece from the next person on the list ,but this piece got me and didn't let me go.

    Complicated and full of Energy!!!

  • God!

  • man this messiaen guy must really like futurama

  • @rofklaw turanga leela was named AFTER this symphony?

  • @rissmuso well i guess canonically it's possible since she was born in the 2970's but futurama was made in 1999 irl.

  • GOLLY!!! I LOVE THIS TOO MUCH!!! 

  • heck yes :)

  • Did anyone else notice the very large number of brass and winds? I thought it was for 3:3:3:3 and 4:3:3:1 with a few additions. There looks to be at at least double those numbers here.

  • @hambonevalt You are absolutely right... they apparently chose to double the wind section...which works out perfectly...I wonder why Messiaen did not come up with this idea in the first place...sounds absolutely wonderful...

  • @hambonevalt You are right that the orchestra size is about 50% larger than Messiaen wrote it. It's a common problem with youth orchestras where they cram in every participant for the "big finale", since they don't want anyone "left out". (I've seen even worse with Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony...)

  • @BlueCougar Hey, it's a kid's orchestra. They wanted to make sure that everyone participated, I guess, so that no hearts were broken when they would have told them that they couldn't perform at the Proms on live television! Or at least that is my theory.

  • Every possible instrument you can ever think of is heard in this piece (or almost)! This is my favorite of the work.

  • Does Aimard match Loriod? I think he does! 

  • @elgar34 I think so too.... what a unique piece of music...Messiaen is such a unique man.... there is no composer who wrote music which sounds so original, with only Messiaen who could have written it.... what a good idea to expand the orchestral apparatus... sounds much better than the original....

  • The piano part was originally written for Bobby Crush whose grandfather Victor Crush was killed at the Battle of the Somme whilst running towards the enemy with parsnips strapped to chest. At the first rehearsal Bobby famously exclaimed "Olly, I can't play THIS!" at which point Yvonne Loriod stepped in. The rest, as they say, is history.

  • i love the whole thing and especially this movement:)

  • I got shivers during all the movement ! I love it, it's so powerful :)

  • pure genius

  • The pianist is crazy. In a good way.

  • That effin' Ondes kicks ass, maaaaaan...

  • Amazing that this is a youth orchestra!

  • The single hottest video on YouTube.

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  • Never heard a piece this crazy before and probably will never again hear something as different as this

  • @iGookin Yes, it's a crazy and experimental one alright!

  • THIS IS YOUR BRAIN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION......

  • Also, re: the debate about dead plants, or whatever it is, "tonal" and "atonal" are very strange words to use when talking about a composer who invented his own scales. Just saying.

  • Love is usually depicted with big, sensual, slow-moving chords, but not here. This is love's ability to completely take over, its ecstasies, the maddening throes of its feverish, inhibition-be-damned joy, ultimately embodied by a piano cadenza, which explodes out of it all and is so incapable of containing itself all one can do is pound one's fists on the keyboard.

    This is wild shit. Makes me want to scream for joy.

  • Absolutely astonishing! The big M will be missed!

  • beyond our comprehension of the "genius" model

  • 5:39 - orgasm...

  • What a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG orchestra !!!!!!!!

  • Huge ensemble, any idea how many players overall?

  • i love ondes martenot :)

  • Devine!

  • The piano cadenza just makes me always feel... I don't how to say... it's so powerful moment!

  • What's that funny piano thing (not the black one)?

  • @igitur1978 that's Ondes Martenot for ya ; )

  • @igitur1978 It is the Ondes Martenot

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  • This actually sounds like pop music, albeit rather good, and hair-raising too. Let the hair be raised. With this kind of proceedings, nice to see, Mr.Aimard turns up too, usually.

  • Holy cow! The piano part is crazy!

  • An interesting piece, for sure. For those saying how ugly this is, etc, it's considered 20th century music. Check it out an wikipedia.

  • Wow! Never heard that before (yes, EW sent me here).  Incredible. And I love that Ondes Martenot!

  • Thumb up if Eric Whitacre sent you here. :)

  • @swaggerofthedagger You mean he actually sends people to my videos? I'm honored!

  • @jre58591 Hahaha!! That's great!!! I'm mrjansons, btw :P

  • This is brilliant, happy, beautiful music. If you disagree, you are wrong.

  • wow

  • The strange fact that this music is also kind of reminded me of Aphex Twin or Autechre.

  • Lol WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!!

  • fuckin genius! i love his observations on nature and how he translates them into the music, thats beautiful!!

  • This is the most wonderful thing ever made. It chokes me up every time i hear. i can't believe the age of some of the people playing this piece. The whole of Turangalila is incredible but this one - oh god its got so much in it! The ryhtms that the flutes and piano are creating! Ooooh my god! Its bloody cosmic!

  • This is like intense happiness, like when a team wins a championship or something! It also makes me think of Bugs Bunny in the main melodies.

  • The name of this movement reflects everything it represents musically: it's joyful, frightening and sounds like it's from outer space!

  • Fabulous...this is (no offense) the only piece by Messiaen I can stand (i.e. this specific movement).  Don't tell me I'm biased against modern music, I listen to quite a lot of Varese, Xenakis, Lutoslawski, Ginastera, Berio, etc. I just intensely dislike Messiaen (and Ligeti, and Stockhausen)...except for this movement, one of the greatest works of the century. It is insane, almost frightening, amazingly complex, and beautiful beyond most people's imaginations.

  • Revelatory! 

  • 0:27

    That part always really scared me.

  • @KhagarBalugrak - never heard such a narrow-minded, ignorant statement.

  • @Shota871, of course it's narrow-minded and ignorant, simply because it goes against your own personal view. Oh wait, that is YOUR OWN narrow-mindedness for judging my comment as you did. It is a proven fact that atonal music is harmful to life - many scientific studies have been done on its effects on plants, for example. When exposed to atonal music for just a couple hours a day, small plants will wither and die within just a few weeks.

  • @KhagarBalugrak While I think your assertion that "atonal music is harmful to life" is absurd, I'm not aware to what scientific studies you refer. Could you provide a source for this information? I'm willing to be convinced. In any case, they would not be relevant here. However chromatic Messiaen's music may be, [and sometimes it is very much so,] it is most definitely NOT atonal.

  • @mujerado, whether Messaien qualifies as atonal (what Dorothy Retallack refers to as "negative music") would need an experiment for a clear answer, since it's right on the border between tonality and atonality. However, I have come to the conclusion that plants would have a slight negative reaction to it - though nothing like how they wilt rapidly when exposed to death metal.

  • @KhagarBalugrak Well, I'm interested to read that you have come to that conclusion, but I'd still like a reference to scientific evidence that atonal music harms plants, let alone being "harmful to life." I think what it boils down to is that you just dislike Messiaen, for which more power to you, but don't overstate your case.

  • @mujerado, there's an article on ehow.com about this. It won't let me post the link for some reason, but you can search for the article and find it. It's called "How Do Plants React To Classical Music?" The researcher, Dorothy Retallack, is very famous, and her work has been featured over 500 times in various magazines and newspapers. She found that Schoenberg killed plants while Palestrina caused them to thrive.

  • @KhagarBalugrak The effects on plants, which are extremely simple organisms compared to humans, do not come close to justifying your claim that atonal music is harmful to all life.

  • @KhagarBalugrak Palestrina? I certainly wouldn't be able to live, listening to Palestrina...

  • @devostm, then obviously you aren't aware of the beauty of his music. You know, when plants and animals are exposed to Palestrina, they thrive - plants grow much faster than normal, and animals exhibit more loving behavior. Clearly, Palestrina wrote very beautiful, very healing and nuturing music.

  • @KhagarBalugrak if you think for a second that the music Schoenberg cannot be beautiful just because some researcher says that atonal music kills plants, you're not appreciating music - you're appreciating research.

    There are many composers I prefer to Schoenberg, but it is not because I can't grow a garden around him.

  • @Shota871, Don't hate truth just because it's personally inconvenient for you to acknowledge it. Suppressing or dismissing truth is something that totalitarian cultures do. Don't shoot the messenger just because you hate the message.

  • @12jjyz

    Decadence of the times ? Do you know who Messian was ?

  • @12jjyz, Me too. This is God-awful noise for the most part. Even the tonal parts are shallow, strange and annoying. Now that I have listened to a whopping 90 seconds of this, I need to cleanse my soul with the searing, purifying fire of Bach organ music.

  • Many congratulationssss....

  • Congratulation....

  • I love this movement. Makes some kind of ecstasy bubble up inside of me =D..... I cannot believe this is performed by a youth orchestra. WOW. Special kudos to whoever played the ondes martenot. Excellent performance- one of the best.

  • w - w - WOW!!! Those pesky kids sure pulled that one off! 20 out of 10 from me!

  • that piano cadenza is formidable indeed - i have to get the score of this work.

  • wow !

  • High five to kids in the orchestra

  • Very moving...

  • Jonny Greenwood's (amazing musician from Radiohead) favorite piece of music

  • I heard the sonic exploitation of, like, a billion angles-

    ..CHAOS unfolding, even-

    ..then, at the end, it reminds you that even within the song's chaotic throes, all has a strong architectural foundation, containing a hint of sorrow, but, ultimately-

    ..TRIUMPH!

  • Thank you for this fantastic video.

    I´m absolutely surprised about the very well performane of this young orchestra.

    The tempi are amazing - great interpretation. I´m sure, Olivier Messiaen would like this interpretation !

    Thanks again & best wishes

  • What a great music it is !!

    thx uproading :-)

  • 5:40 are the colour chords. Someone knows what colour represents the third chord (5:45) ??? thanks.

  • I can listen to this part endless....

  • troche kupy

    leichte kake

  • jep, the R2-D2 noises are really great!

    some years ago I was at a live-performance of this piece,

    sitting in the second row,

    the ondes-martenot quasi directly in front of me.

    it was ... awesome!

  • I would consider Turangallila more as a suite than a symphony because of its structure. Nevertheless it is well orchestrated, rich neoromantic composition. Messiaen at his best.

  • @K0MP0NIST why? could you explain please?

  • Where is 6th Movement?

  • This piece is "balls to the wall." the R2-D2 noises starting 2:30 are awesome. I love Messiaen

  • lmao

  • 5:27 is so intense !

  • I think Messiaen would highly approve of this.

    This is definitely one of the bestest (I know bestest is not a word) videos on YouTube... arguably one of the finest recordings of this movement ever!

    And it's from a youth orchestra! I highly commend the great numbers of the talented youth in this orchestra!! BRAVO

  • Agreed. They nailed all the crazy colours, no? And they really captured the joy of all those Ellington-esque turnarounds (e.g. 1:50 - 1:53).

    My one reservation: they didn't milk the crescendo the way they could have. Check out the recording by Seiji Ozawa and the TSO. It's like the sound of the Sun exploding.

  • @kongming819 "Bestest" is a perfectly cromulent word.

  • The most awesome thing in the world.

  • @jre58591 I've uploaded Hamelin's version; I hope you'll appreciate it.

  • @madlovba2 Thanks anyways, but I already have that version!

  • the orchestra is huge

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  • It's actually double the size that Messiaen intended it to be...

  • thanks for displaying you close mindedness and ignorance.

  • it`s music from our life! Fabtastic!!

  • There really have been many changes in the world since the days of the artists of the established canon. To simply repeat "traditional forms" without reference to those changes would certainly not augur well for the future of the arts. In fact, it would indicate that art had died because it no longer reflected the life and culture of the society in which it was created. Instead, it merely refers back to some no longer extant "halcyon era".

  • It's all a matter of taste I suppose. I find it beautiful.

  • hopefully you won't give up -- you won't dismiss, you won't ignore this piece (or any other you haven't "latched onto") and give another listen, and maybe find something interesting you hadn't expected or appreciated during a previous listen

  • Even the deliriously happy tonal parts?

  • If you like MESSIAEN check his opera SAINT FRANÇOIS DASSISE + 50 other operas by 50 other composers in my play list 20th CENTURY OPERA ( including the world premiere of ARIA DEL CIRUJANO from Opera Opus Operatorum by Roberto Rius & Pedro Ipuche Riva )

    20th CENTURY OPERA : the MOST VIEWED and MOST COMPLETE last century opera playlist in YOU TUBE !

  • perhaps the best part of this colossal partiture, this 5th movement, joy of the blood of the stars, points out the religious orientation of the author, I really like this section, although I like better the version by the orchestra of the opera de la bastille directed by Myung-whun Chung from 1990

  • There is not a single movement in the entire Turangalila Symphony that doesn't give me goosebumps every time I listen to it.

  • Esta obra me sobrecoge el corazón, me hace sentir tan pequeño y envuelto en una infinidad galáctica hermosa, me entierra en mi silla y no puedo hacer nada más que escuchar e imaginarme viendo a la Tierra desde la deriva, flotando en el universo.

  • Ahhhhh.... This is my favourite movement from this piece. I have the recording of Kent Nagano with the Berlin Philharmonic performing this piece, and Mr. Aimard is featured in that recording as well, wonderful playing by such young performers. It is a dream of mine to watch this piece performed live, if only for the magnificent chord at the end of this movement. The conductor makes the same face I do while listening to it, and that makes me very happy.

  • Fantastico Messiaen!

  • I love this piece, and they sound AWESOME!!! Pierre Laurent Aimard is a genius!

  • Oh god I almost cry!! Imagine that live!! I will faint!!

    A question: did they mess it up at 3:35? And also are they only young musicians?

  • The pianist, the ondes martenotist, and the conductor are the only adults and thus not a part of that youth orchestra. I don't think they "messed up" at 3:35, though I'm not by any means familiar with the score of the piece.

  • i just wanna know where can they get so much musicians???????omg XD

  • love it

  • Awesome piece! My favorite part is how he restates the main theme, in the midst of the statue theme comeback, while shifting seamlessly from D to F back to D flat. And then of course there's the insane piano cadenza.

  • Totally agree, that part is the best

  • Don't like this? Leave.

  • The first rule of listening to music is this:

    You never ever expect music to sound like what you think it will. You must engage with and interact with every note, and appreciate each work on its own terms, before placing it in its historical context.

  • not enough boobs for you or something?

  • I love this piece so much I want to take it home and introduce it to my velour bedspread-a.

  • starry.

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  • Holy.....

  • Is there any place on the net where one can download this performance ?

  • Oliver Messiaen, mas que analizarle, hay que sentirle la emocion de su musica.

    Si alguien tiene material de el en español le estaria muy agradecido !

  • as great a performance as it gets. and shocking to see that it is done by young students. this piece is NEVER done by a youth orchestra. this is mind-blowing.

  • wow...interesting!!!

  • Or more like a black hole is sucking everything up and spitting it all back out.

  • I absolutely LOVE it at 5:05 - its like the universe is collapsing in on itself in chaos and then gets reformed again at the end. I can see radio waves piercing stars and making them explode, and then coming back again out of nowhere.

    This piece of music is pure genius.

  • Haha!! 3:40 is hilarious, and Aimard looks almost dainty at 4:33! Awesome!!

  • I have never had the change to listen to the Turangalila live. I know it has 10 movements. But the question is, how do people mange to avoid clapping, screaming and shouting at the end of the fifth movement? It's insane.

  • Sometimes they don't. I saw Hamelin perform this in Toronto in last year, and the audience couldn't contain itself. He got a lengthy standing ovation after this movement.

  • A "love song" as in "torment"...

  • kinda chaotic. certainly gets your heart going. the composer of the song said it was "a love song". i wonder what he meant by that.

  • This work can be taken as a glorification (a divination even) of physical/carnal love. The fifth movement probably depicts this action; those last few seconds of the piece certainly evokes an orgasm!

  • It's very difficult to believe that a youth orchestra could play such complex music at such a high level. This is a real gem!

  • An absolute joy to listen to.....brilliant!!

  • Please do elaborate on this claim. Why do you think that it is ugly? Do you have some sort of preconceived notion on what music *should* sound like? If so, throw it out the window and just listen with a clear and open mind.

  • @jre58591 dude, that's just, like, klutenkloeter's opinion, man. no need to elaborate.

    also, i like this piece.