CUMS I Orchestra
Guest Conductor Baldur Brnnimann
5 stars

CUMS' performance of Messiaen’s 'Turangalla-Symphonie' was spectacular. This notoriously difficult piece was a huge and risky undertaking for the University's first orchestra; they responded with a performance which was not only competent but which overshadowed every previous success I have heard. Great credit must go to the guest conductor, Baldur Brnnimann, who provided understated and yet appropriately passionate direction in a piece where an audience can frequently be left bewildered by Messiaen’s notoriously inconsistent metrical movement.

Messiaen’s music, and particularly this symphony, can in so many performances seem impenetrable, as if the composer had embedded a meaning in the score which only he could fathom. Inspired by widespread influences, including bird-song, Serialism and Indonesian percussion, Messiaen’s particular inspiration for the 'Turangalla-Symphonie' was the myth of Tristan and Isolde; asked to explain the structure of the symphony, Messaien simply replied, ‘It’s a love song.'

One hundred years after his birth - the concert formed part of an ongoing celebration of Messiaen’s centenary - this statement has never been wholly reconciled with the score. CUMS, however, provided a performance which brought together the thoroughly disparate moods of the ten movements. The melodic luxury of the sixth, ‘Jardin du sommeil d’amour’, for instance, was skillfully and uncomfortably juxtaposed with the jolting representation of pain and death in the seventh, 'Turangalla 2’; the orchestra seemed to feel the violence of the latter precisely because of the tranquillity it follows.

A mark of the success of this performance was that the esteemed professionals on the piano and the Ondes Martenot never seemed superior to the orchestra; and the soloists, particularly pianist Matthew Schellhorn, were excellent. CUMS have set themselves a benchmark they will struggle to maintain, but they certainly treated their audience to a performance to be cherished.

Toby Chadd