Turangalîla Symphony, Royal Festival Hall, London

Visitors to the Southbank Centre for the latest concert in its year-long Messiaen festival were transported briefly to Indonesia: as they arrived for a performance of the composer's colossal Turangalîla Symphony, they were met by the sounds of Javanese gamelan, performed by the centre's own ensemble.

The sensual, hypnotic pulse of that music undeniably infiltrates Messiaen's first big orchestral work - commissioned by conductor Serge Koussevitzky in 1945 and first performed four years later - but what is striking about the work is its ebullient eclecticism, its cheerful plundering of sources as disparate as Stravinsky and Mussorgsky, Indian rhythms and modes, even jazz.

Turangalîla (the name derives from Sanskrit, and can loosely be translated as "love song") is also an encyclopaedia of instrumental effects. Part piano concerto, part essay in orchestration, coloured throughout with the eerie whoops and cries of the ondes Martenot, Turangalîla is a challenging piece to pull off, unpredictable in its mood and sometimes uncontrollably volatile.

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