What's On / Proms by Day
TUESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER
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5.45pm - 6.30pm: Proms Intro Martin Handley talks to Tristan Murail about the ondes martenot, and this intriguing electronic instrument's role in Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony.
Prom 64: Berliner Philharmoniker
- Date Tuesday 2 September 2008
- Time 7.30pm - c9.40pm
- Venue Royal Albert Hall
- Tickets £10-£54 price band C or Prom for £5
- Broadcast Live on BBC Radio 3. Available as audio on demand for the following week.
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The story of Tristan and Isolde inspires tonight's Prom by the great Berliner Philharmoniker and its Principal Conductor, Sir Simon Rattle.
The concert opens with the powerful pairing from either end of Wagner's great opera of love and death - its opening notes fused with the concluding 'love-death' of its heroine.
Then pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, in the last of his three appearances this year (see Prom 1 and PCM 1) and ondes martenot player Tristan Murail join the orchestra for Messiaen's ecstatic TurangalÎla Symphony - the central apex of the French composer's Tristan trilogy.
It's a work whose rhythmic complexity has been within Rattle's firm grasp for over 20 years. And, as the conductor has declared, 'If rhythm is primarily an expression of the life-force, who better to be our guide than Olivier Messiaen?'
- Wagner Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod (18 mins)
- Interval
- Messiaen Turangalîla Symphony (78 mins)
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
Tristan Murail ondes martenot
Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
BBC Radio 3
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