Last night’s performance of the Turangalîla Symphony of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began with a welcome disaster: A long queue of ticketholders were still waiting in line for tickets 10 minutes before the concert. By the time I reached the front, the line still stretched almost the entire length of Benaroya Hall. Who would have thought so many people would turn up for a cult symphony that has never been performed in Seattle? But maybe that’s the point.

The concert started late with Duke Ellington’s “Harlem.” This tone parallel - Ellington deliberately skirted the term “tone poem” - is an uproarious depiction of the neighborhood where Ellington first found fame. Yet it came off as an incongruous overture to Turangalîla. “Harlem” is not prime Ellington: the snoozy strings generally pad the rest of the music. I love Duke, but those in search of prime (as well as obscure) orchestral Ellington should investigate “Tymperturbably Blue” and “Tourist Point of View.” The sound was a bit muddy too. The relatively flat-plane layout of the orchestra masked some of the percussion parts. Big bands place percussion, reeds, and brass on raised tiers for a reason - not only to showcase the musicians but for greater projection and timbral clarity. At this gig, the drummer was buried behind the orchestra. Outside the hall, the line was backed up enough so that a slew of folks had to wait for entry after “Harlem” finished.

The Turangalîla Symphony sounded terrific, in spite of the erroneous and near-fatal decision to bisect the work with an intermission. The 80-minute Turangalîla, like one of the behemoth symphonies by Bruckner or Mahler, can easily carry an entire evening. A canny programmer would have skipped “Harlem” (which the band had already played in July). You just shouldn’t cut a massive, slightly crazed devotional hymn like Turangalîla in two. And though I appreciated conductor Geoffrey Simon’s intro to the various themes of the work, this well-meaning tutorial should have been scheduled as a pre-concert demo and when things started running late - overtime at Benaroya ain’t cheap - jettisoned altogether.

Nonetheless, Simon and the Northwest Mahler Orchestra, as well as soloists Thomas Bloch (ondes Martenot, similar model pictured above) and Jay Gottlieb (piano and a glittering silvery shirt) gave a heroic and impassioned performance of the Turangalîla. Composed in the late 1940s, the Gershwin-gone-gamelan of Turangalîla combines chugging jazzy harmonies, glittery orchestral textures, and the eerie wail of a seldom-seen electronic instrument, the ondes Martenot, into a massive ten-movement meditation on time, love, and rhythm.

“You certainly can’t fall asleep to it.” said one audience member to another as they exited. Nope. It was loud, blaring, and delirious - as it should be. The entire band was rhythmically tight, deftly managing Messiaen’s cut n’paste bloc structures, though the brass (understandably - Messiaen makes pitiless demands) showed a few signs of fatigue in the last two movements. And though I love intermissions, the break after the fifth movement sapped the initial momentum of the second half. Prayer must never be interrupted.

Anyway, I adored the sighing strings and ondes Martenot in “Joy in the Blood of the Stars,” as well as the clip-clop percussion and glowering brass of “Turangalîla 2.” “Song of Love 2” was simply beautiful.

Despite my kvetching, it was an unforgettable concert. An ideal follow-up? Karlheinz Stockhausen turns 80 next year. How about Gruppen or Inori?