This 2024 release featuring
Messiaen
's vast
Turangalîla Symphonie
is a landmark event in several ways. It marks conductor
Gustavo Gimeno
's premiere recording with the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
and the orchestra's first recording for the
Harmonia Mundi
label. The album, recorded live over two performances at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, captures the first
Toronto Symphony
performance of the work since its
Seiji Ozawa
days; ondes Martenot player
Nathalie Forget
was flown in from France, her instrument broken down and shipped in ten separate boxes, and the all-important piano part is played by
Marc-André Hamelin
, arguably Canada's top keyboard star of the day. For all the star power, the main attraction is simply the performance itself, catching the vast scope of this work with its loose program based on the tale of Tristan and Isolde.
Gimeno
gets top-notch playing from his percussion section in rhythmically difficult music.
Hamelin
's piano passages are crackling, and the hugely diverse score, whose languages range from serialism to Indian and Indonesian classical music to jazz-inflected passages, is handled by
and his players with absolute confidence and a sense of the work's overarching structure. An impressive achievement, with fine sonics from
engineers working in a new venue. This release made classical best-seller charts in early 2024. ~ James Manheim