Limelight — May 2017

dies. Distraught, the narrator sits up in the night with her

corpse, and to his horror, the body gradually starts to come

back to life.“But it comes back to life in the form of the

first wife,”explains Hill.“The story has a kind of ghastliness

beyond words – really, absolutely nightmarish.”

The dream- (or nightmare-)like quality of the

Turangalîla-Symphonieis built right into the music,

linking it in many ways with the Surrealism movement

in art. Hill describesTurangalîlaas a form of musical

Surrealism whereby objects are taken out of their

normal context. “It’s a world of its own in some ways,

almost a universe into which you have to immerse

yourself, and it can become a dream world,”he says.

“It’s a bit like going to a music drama by Wagner –

a kind of total immersion piece. The melodies are

instantly graspable – that’s the easiest aspect of

Turangalîla– but at the other end is the unlimited

wealth of detail into which once can dive, and the

quite extraordinary use of instruments as well.”

WhileTurangalîlais full of colourful percussion and

textural scoring, it is the two solo instruments – the

ondes martenot and piano – that really define its

soundworld.“The ondes martenot does two things

inTurangalîla,”says Hill.“On the one hand it can rip

through the orchestral texture like a demented banshee,

but at the same time it can colour what otherwise would

have been a string melody by doubling it, adding this

ethereal voice, otherworldly voice, to it.”

“I think the ondes martenot particularly adds to this

sense of unreality that you sometimes get inTurangalîla,

the sense of a surreal or dream world,”he says.“The

piano on the other hand is very interesting. It’s clearly

immensely difficult – the solo part – but it’s not a piano

concerto, which his later works with piano were more or

less to become. The piano has its solos and cadenzas,

but its most important role is to lead a particular section

of the orchestra, which I call the gamelan.”

A gamelan is an Indonesian ensemble of tuned

percussion instruments, whose music is typified by

repetitious patterns and layering. “The piano is the leader

Yuja Wang on piano

and Cynthia Millar

on ondes martenot

in a performance of

Turangalîla-Symphonie

conducted by Gustavo

Dudamel in Bogotá

TURANGALÎLAO

Dennis O’Neill

CBE

Dr Graham

Johnson OBE

WAAPA International Art Song Academy

and Junior Art Song Academy

Intensive training in the performance of art song for singers, pianists, teachers and

lovers of great music.

10 - 16 July 2017

Edith Cowan University, 2 Bradford St, Mount Lawley, Western Australia

: +61 8 93 0 6895 / E: [email protected]

waapa.ecu.edu.au/artsong

Internationally renowned teachers Dr Graham Johnson

OBE, Senior Professor in Vocal Accompaniment at

London’s Guildhall School and Dennis O’Neill, Director,

Wales International Academy of Voice will lead observers

and selected participants in the performance of Italian

and German art song encompassing the music of

Schubert, Wolf, Bellini,Puccini and Verdi, culminating

in a Gala Concert with Dr Johnson.