Along with the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, the symphony is one of the composer's most notable works.

[6] While most of Messiaen's compositions are religious in inspiration, at the time of writing the symphony the composer was fascinated by the myth of Tristan and Isolde, and the Turangalîla Symphony forms the central work in his trilogy of compositions concerned with the themes of romantic love and death; the other pieces are Harawi for piano with soprano and Cinq rechants for unaccompanied trios of soprani, alti, tenors, and basses.

"[8] Although the concept of a rhythmic scale corresponding to the chromatic scale of pitches occurs in Messiaen's work as early as 1944, in the Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (a work Messiaen quotes in the fourth movement), the arrangement of such durations into a fixed series occurs for the first time in the opening episode of the movement "Turangalîla 2" in this work, and is an important historical step toward the concept of integral serialism.

[10] He derived the title from two Sanskrit words, turaṅga (तुरङ्ग) and līlā (लीला), which he explained thus:[8] Messiaen described the joy of Turangalîla as "superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited".

Next, he added the three Turangalîla movements, which he originally called tâlas, a reference to the use of rhythm in Indian classical music.