Composed during the radical years following World War II and given the rebarbative name "Turangalila-Symphonie," Olivier Messiaen's lengthy orchestra work of 1949 might be expected to be righteously avant-garde. After all, this was a composer who delighted in theoretical discourse.

	Tina Foster Pianist Marc- Andre Hamelin says of Olivier Messiaen, "I think that he felt that a lot of what he was doing was new and unexplored territory, so naturally he wanted to elucidate it as much as much as he could." Click photo for larger image. Pittsburgh Symphony Program: "Turangalila-Symphonie." Featuring: Andrew Davis, conductor; Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano; Jean Laurendeau, ondes martinot. Where: Heinz Hall, Downtown. When: 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $17-$72; 412-392-4900.
	Listen In: While there is no definite storyline cutting through Olivier Messiaen's "Turangalila-Symphonie,' the composer did identify several important and recurring themes: The imposing Statue Theme, "always played fortissimo by the trombones with the heavy, terrifying beauty of old Mexican monuments," wrote Messiaen. The Flower Theme, "given to the gentle clarinets, a pianissimo nuance, has two voices like a pair of matching eyes. Here a flower image is the most apt." The Love Theme, derived from the two above. "The third of these themes is the most important of all--the Love theme." A wild Dance Theme that enters in the fifth movement. The electronic Ondes Martinot is heard in glissandos above the orchestra.

But the sonic truth could hardly be further than that. While there are complex musical games taking place in the rhythms of its 10 movements, "Turangalila" is anything but a dry treatise. Like Messiaen's famous "Quartet for the End of Time," written in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, "Turangalila" brims with accessible themes and powerful emotion.

"This is a fantastic, remarkable, exciting and colorful piece that is an overwhelming experience when you listen to a [live] performance," says conductor Andrew Davis. The music adviser of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is keen to introduce local audiences to the piece, which has only been heard in Pittsburgh under Andre Previn in 1978. Davis will repeat a concert format he has done in Philadelphia and Toronto: He will open the concert with a discussion of the piece's main themes and ideas. After intermission, he and the PSO then launch into the roughly 75-minute work.

Messiaen (1908-92) is one of the great anomalies of the previous century. Foremost, he was a devout Catholic in a time of profound questioning of religion, especially among artists and composers. Born in Avignon, France, Messiaen was raised in an artistic family. He attended the Paris Conservatory, however upon graduation he became the organist of La Trinite in Paris. A church organist post is more in keeping with a 16th-century composer than a 20th-century one. But the position fit Messiaen perfectly, and he held it his entire life.

Messiaen went against the grain elsewhere, too. In an era when composers tended to be mysterious about their methods, Messiaen was open. "He is one of the only composers who have actually explained everything that he does," said Marc-Andre Hamelin, the pianist who will assume the vigorous piano part in "Turangalila." "I think that he felt that a lot of what he was doing was new and unexplored territory, so naturally he wanted to elucidate it as much as he could." Messiaen even went to the point of publishing a two-volume book, "Technique of my musical language."

Finally, contrary to composers who wanted to dehumanize music through mechanical means such as total serialism (a rigid system that arranges all aspects of music in a composition), Messiaen immersed himself in birdsong. He would spend long days transcribing their chirping, incorporating them into his works. He was said to recognize 600 different species. Messiaen actually did occasionally experiment with total serialism of rhythm and infuses "Turangalila" with melodic and rhythmic palindromes, but he never approached the academic rigor of composers such as Boulez or Stockhausen, two of his students.

This is not to say Messiaen eschewed modern inventions. He was a champion of the ondes martinot, an electronic instrument with a sci-fi glissando (famously doubling the wordless soprano in the "Star Trek" theme). Messiaen used it in "Turangalila" and three of them in his opera, "St. Francis of Assisi."

Messiaen entwined all of these threads into "Turangalila," at the time, his largest work. "It is one of my works most richly endowed with innovation, and also the most melodic, most warm, most dynamic and most colorful," wrote Messiaen.

"Turangalila's" title is a conflation of two Sanskrit words: "Turanga" for flowing time and "lila" for the play of love and death. The source is perhaps an odd one for a religious composer, the myth of Tristan and Isolde.

"['Turangalila'] is about earthly love, [while] most of his work is about heavenly love," says Davis. "It has to do with his great love for pianist Yvonne Loriod [Messiaen's wife was still alive, but very ill]."

Yet there is a connection to the divine. "They talk about heavenly and earthly love as the same thing," Davis says. "They come from Tristan and Isolde, the great world of human eroticism, but they come from a kind of spiritual world, as well. It's love being love, and Messiaen never made a huge distinction between the divine and human."

"Turangalila" is something of a symphony and something of a tone poem and something of a concerto, for piano and ondes martinot solos. "The piano is really a character; it is not a leader or main protagonist," says Hamelin. "It is a very important component, as is the ondes martinet."

The music is largely tonal, though it doesn't develop as much as simply unfurl. "It is about different pieces of musical thought that are juxtaposed in different ways," says Davis.

True to form, Messiaen outlined these musical thoughts, identifying several: a foreboding "Statue Theme" in the brass, a dainty "Flower Theme" introduced in the woodwinds and a lush "Love Theme" that the strings introduce. Per the title, Hindu rhythms course through the work and birdsong is mimicked intermittently throughout. "He thought of birdsong as really part of the voice of God," says Davis."

An introduction identifies the "Statue" and "Flower" themes, almost the same way that a symphony might offer "masculine" first and "feminine" second themes. Two "Chant d'amours" (2 and 4) and three Turangalila sections (3, 7, 9) give the work a structure in between which the most passionate movements flow: the fifth, sixth and tenth.

The fifth movement is an ecstatic dance ("tremendously catchy," says Davis). It is titled "Joy in the blood of the stars" and captures the lovers in physical embrace.

The full love theme emerges in the sixth, a long slow movement marked pianissimo and espressivo. "It is, he said, the lovers absorbed in each other in the garden of love," says Davis. "It is a true kind of ecstatic, but in an interior sense." The pianist plays "like the song of a bird" above the texture, with the ondes martinot player doubling the melody, as a sort of half-human, half-divine voice.

The work then ends in spectacular fashion in the tenth and final movement. "It is a climatic moment; it goes into the last statement of the love theme which is and overwhelming and celebratory dance," says Davis. "That is a moment when the blinding force of love just takes hold."

Davis and the PSO think Messiaen's "Turangalila-Symphonie" will take hold of patrons' attention. "Expect an extremely colorful experience and a piece that is full of extremes in all respects," says Hamlin. Adds Davis: "You have to let each moment speak to you and the colors of the music and the kaleidoscopic sounds of the piece."