Messiaen’s exuberant Turangalila Symphony – the central panel of his Tristan trilogy – met Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod once before at the Proms, in 1993. This time, though, both pieces arrived with the full might of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle, and the ovation even before they had played a note threatened to be almost as long as the masterworks themselves.

As the auditorium was finally hushed, we heard that Tristan chord, that unmistakable body of strings, densely focused yet live and visceral; we heard those dark, rich horns, that plangent, reedy oboe. And we heard deep silences, too, for Rattle paced his Prelude to Tristan und Isolde to fit the space. When the clarinet and trombones began their Liebestod, it was hard to tell whether the sound came from earth or air.

What would the Berliners make of the Turangalila Symphony – in Messiaen’s words a “hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and earth”? The composer’s escape from a Polish prison camp during the Second World War can be the only excuse for such an extravagantly overwritten, fearlessly vulgar, whooping celebration of the life force. To Rattle’s credit, he refused to use the work as a virtuoso orchestral showpiece but, again, gave the music time and space. He opened up its textures to disclose the finest hidden detail, yet carved out the great songs of love with sculptural strength.

Pierre Laurent Aimard, virtually the musical godchild of Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod, recreated the extraordinary piano cadenzas with both finesse and flair; and Tristan Murail, also a pupil of Messiaen, whooped and wailed electronically at the console of the ondes martenot.

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