Joy and love
About the 2026 opening concert of the Bergen International Festival
- By:
Lars Petter Hagen,
Oliver Messaien’s Turangalîla Symphony is one of the most overwhelming and distinctive orchestral works of the twentieth century – a celebration of love, life force and ecstasy.
Composed over two years immediately after World War II, the work pushes the boundaries of what a symphony can be, opening a musical room in which the traditional and the modern, the earthly and the heavenly all meet in a rich and boundless universe of sound.
The title Turangalîla is inspired by two Sanskrit words encompassing meanings related to time, movement, rhythm, love and play – play in the sense of the divine action upon the cosmos, the play of creation, destruction, reconstruction, the play of life and death. For Messiaen it became an image of the music itself: a force encompassing the sensual and the spiritual, the human and the cosmic. Inspired by the saga of Tristan and Isolde, he creates a work in which love transgresses the individual and becomes a creative force connecting humankind, nature and the universe.
Turangalîla makes extreme demands on its performers, and requires an orchestra with extraordinary qualities. Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, 101 festival musicians strong, is one of the oldest in the world, with roots back to 1765. Through international tours, award-winning recordings and a constantly growing international presence, the orchestra has fortified its position among the higher echelons of international ensembles. In October 2025 the orchestra received the prestigious Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award.
The soloists in this evening’s performance are the French pianist Bertrand Chamayou and Cécile Lartigau, one of the world’s foremost performers on the ondes Martenot, the distinctive electronic instrument which with its ethereal sound is inextricably linked to Turangalîla.
In the epicentre is Esa-Pekka Salonen – one of the greatest conductors and musical personalities of our time. Through several decades he has influenced the international music scene as conductor, composer and artistic director for several of the world’s most famous orchestras, including those of Los Angeles, London, Paris and San Francisco. Esa-Pekka Salonen is recognised for his rare combination of analytic precision, sonorous imagination and artistic authority, and is considered one of the foremost interpreters of twentieth and twenty-first century music.
As the 2026 Artist in Residence at the Bergen International Festival he shares with the audience his deeply personal relationship with Turangalîla. The work made an indelible impression on him while he was still a young musician in Finland, and has since followed him throughout his career.
The encounter between Messiaen’s monumental work, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen forms a major artistic centre of gravity of this year’s Festival. At this opening concert the Festival’s artistic ambition is clearly focused: to create extraordinary experiences which draw people together around art and show the capacity of music to move, to challenge and to open spaces for community and experience.
