Symphony No. 8 "Symphony of a Thousand"

    Imagine that the Universe bursts into song. We hear no longer
    human voices, but those of planets and suns which revolve.

    Mahler, in a letter to Mengelberg.

    The entire audience rose to their feet as soon as Mahler took his
    place at the conductor's desk; and the breathless silence which
    followed was the most impressive homage an artist could be
    paid...And then Mahler, god or demon, turned those tremendous
    volumes of sound into fountains of light. The experience was
    indescribable. Indescribable, too, was the demonstration that
    followed. The whole audience surged towards the platform.

    Alma Mahler.

    I confess that for the first time I understood the music of Mahler to
    tell myself: here is a great composer.

    Otto Klemperer.

The Eighth Symphony was written in an extraordinary burst of creativity, in
eight weeks in the summer of 1906 (it was orchestrated the following year).
The first performance, in Munich on September 12, 1910, was the greatest
triumph of Mahler's life; in the audience included Karl Goldmark, Franz
Schmidt, Arnold Schoenberg, Eugen d'Albert, Oskar Nedbal, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold, Siegfried Wagner, Sergei Rachmaninov (Mahler had conducted him
in the second performance of the Third Piano Concerto in New York),
Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Felix Weingartner, Karl Muck, Leo
Blech, Anton Webern, Leopold Stokowski, Willem Mengelberg, Bruno
Walter, Clemenceau, Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, Max Reinhardt, the King of
Belgium, the Prince Regent of Bavaria and Henry Ford (although there is some
doubt as to the presence of Elgar, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg and Vaughan
Williams)

Apart from the eight soloists, there was an orchestra of 171 (including 84
strings) and a chorus of 850, for a total of 1029 performers - hence the
sobriquet Symphony of a Thousand given to the work by Emil Gutmann, the
impresario responsible for the premiere. Mahler was unimpressed by this title,
and referred to the even as the "Barnum and Bailey Show".

During the ovation, which, as Paul Stefan related, lasted for half an hour,
Mahler walked along the ranks of the children's choir shaking each and every
one of them by the hand.

Mahler's description of this symphony is an apt one; and certainly the
experience of the music should be overwhelming, it should leave you feeling,
however briefly, that this is unquestionably the greatest piece of music ever
written.

A spectacular recording then, is a sine qua non, especially for anyone
unfamiliar with the work. But a great performance is just as essential. I have
heard this work live three times: the first time, in London in 1966, under
Bernstein, was unforgettable, one of the greatest musical experiences of my
life. The second time, twenty years later, was again in London, conducted by
Sir Colin Davis. Even as I was overwhelmed by the sheer physical impact of
the sound I was thinking to myself "this is wrong - it should sound like Mahler,
not Berlioz". A thought - which lunatic let Davis loose on Mahler, a composer
with whom he seems to have no empathy at all? In the same series (Mahler,
Vienna and the turn of the century or some such title) celebrating the 125th
anniversary of his birth, most of the other symphonies were conducted by
Abbado, with the Concertgebouw flying in with Bernstein for the 9th (and no, I
didn't go - it sold out in no time at all). So why Davis? Anyone who has ever
heard his dismal Das Lied will know he is the wrong man for the job. Oh well.

The third time I heard the Eighth, again in London, it was performed by the
Kent County Youth Orchestra. Only the conductor and the soloists were
professional musicians. Despite some dubious choral singing, underpowered
offstage brass and other shortcomings, so intense was the concentration of
these young people (none over 21) that I was virtually in tears at the end. A
great performance does not require perfection; an uninspired performance is
worse than none at all.

A new recording is for me the definite new front-runner in this work; Leif
Segerstam turns in perhaps the finest performance yet in his cycle for
Chandos. There is a glowing intensity about both sound and performance and,
while the singers may not quite match the stellar team assembled for Solti (and
tenor Raimo Sirki萧s Blicket auf seems to me somewhat mannered in delivery)
this is the nearest I have yet heard to a one hundred per cent successful
recording. In particular, Segerstam's final coda is simply overwhelming - both
emotionally and physically. The coupling (yes, there is a coupling) is a glacially
slow (29 minutes and change) Adagio from the Tenth, which is so gripping
and intense that I hope he will go on and record the Cooke version.

Segerstam's recording came during a year which also saw three other new
recordings released (is this a record?) Abbado's and J酺vi's can be dismissed
fairly quickly: Abbado's is - to my ears - dull and uneventful and very badly
recorded; oh it sounds well enough, but anyone familiar with the score will
soon notice the missing details - the organ, for example, disappears after the
opening bars, never to make its presence felt thereafter (even in the final coda,
where it is the sole support for the men's voices it is scarcely audible).

J绂vi's recording is, like Abbado's, a live one; the performance was given as a
benefit for the children orphaned by of the disastrous sinking of the ferry M/s
Estonia; the Queen of Sweden "supports this initiative in consideration of its
humanitarian significance" (and she's a lot better looking that the Queen of
England) so nobody could feel bad about buying this single BIS CD. If only it
were a more inspiring performance. Once again J绂vi seems determined to
break speed records - the symphony comes in at 70'16" - and the whole seem
to have a slightly perfunctory air to it.

Far more to my taste is the live recording made during the 1995 Colorado
MahlerFest. An orchestra and chorus of volunteers under Robert Olsen turn in
what is undoubtedly a very fine Mahler Eight indeed. This recording has been
categorised with the 1950 Stokowski, 1959 Horenstein and 1975 Bernstein as
the great live recordings; I am not quite sure I would go that far (and the
Bernstein has never struck me as being anything like as successful as a
performance - or recording for that matter - as his 1966 LSO account) but it is
a performance which grows from its slightly tentative (relatively speaking)
opening to a superb conclusion.

There are undoubted shortcomings, though, which honesty compels me to
mention: the chorus is just too small, so that one can actually hear individual
voices on occasion - although the upside to this is that the diction is unusually
clear; the recording is clean and generally well-balanced, although the brass are
often somewhat "in your face", but there is little hall ambience, and the
children's voices are nothing like loud enough for their full impact to be made.
And towards the end of the work there can be no doubting that the performers
are tiring, especially the soloists and some of the brass players, although few
live performances can avoid this completely.

Still, this is a very exciting performance, it is well recorded and deserves a
place in any serious Mahler collection. Do I wish I'd been there? Oh yes.

The MahlerFest CD can be ordered by sending a VISA number plus exp. date,
or check for $23.45 to Colorado MahlerFest, P. O. Box 1314, Boulder, CO
60306-1314, along with details of shipping address. My thanks to Stan
Ruttenberg, president of the Colorado MahlerFest, for the information.

The 1972 CSO/Solti, a stunning recording for its day, it still sounds extremely
well and, for me, far outshines all of Solti's other Mahler recordings (except,
perhaps, that 1964 LSO first). Solti is undeniably a great orchestral technician,
and has probably the finest team of singers and musicians of any recording,
but there is still that slight hint of glitz to the performance which makes it
ultimately, for me, fall short of being the very finest.

Although many people go into ecstasies over it, I am less than overwhelmed
by Tennstedt's recording. As a recording it certainly has lots of presence and a
warm sound, but there is still something lacking: the soloists are often strangely
balanced, and the extra brass at the ends of parts I and II don't come off at all
- they should somehow sound other or elsewhere, not simply like the main
orchestral brass playing a little softer. Both Solti and Bernstein (1966) are more
successful from this viewpoint.

If you want to know why I don't hold the Tennstedt higher than the others,
listen to the very end of Part I. Tennstedt can't resist holding back slightly on
the final 'saeculorum saecula', presumably for effect, but how much less
effective and affecting it is than Bernstein's exhilaratingly precipitate rush for
the finishing line. This movement is, after all, marked allegro impetuoso, but
impetuosity is one thing Tennstedt can never be accused of.

There is a live version by Tennstedt on laser disc, which many people think
should be issued on CD. I haven't heard it, but my experience of live
Tennstedt on disc so far is mixed: like the First, loved the Fifth, hated the Sixth
and was puzzled by the Seventh.

Because this symphony is so huge in its orchestral, solo and choral demands it
is almost invariably left to last in a complete cycle. This is, tragically, the
reason why there was no digital remake from Bernstein - he was slated to
rerecord it in 1992 in New York. A 1975 live Salzburg version has since
appeared, coupled with the Adagio (only) of the 10th. This is a genuine
warts-and-all live recording (which, incidentally most of Lenny's later stuff
wasn't, it was usually an amalgam of several performances - this is not unusual
today) and has consequent lapses of singing and playing; also the recording
leaves a good deal to be desired, and the organ sounds, to my ears, like a
badly tuned Wurlitzer. I would not be without this version, but can't really
recommend it. I do know of people who prefer it as a performance to his 1966
Sony; I am not of their number.

Despite its inferior recording, therefore, I must still enter a plea on behalf of his
1966 LSO (Sony) recording. This was made a few days after the live
performance I witnessed and I have lived with it on LP and now CD for over a
quarter of a century (and I find that hard to believe even as I write it). To my
mind it is a great performance.

More recently there have been single CD releases by Shaw and Gielen. Robert
Shaw, legendary chorus master for Toscanini, has produced a version on
Telarc which has received almost universal thumbs down. Unsurprising really,
he has no Mahlerian track record and the 8th is not the easiest of the
symphonies to get right.

The much-underrated Michael Gielen's version (Sony) is possibly the cheapest
yet, although far from the worst. An analogue recording made in 1981 at the
reopening of the Frankfurt Alte Oper (incidentally also the site of Inbal's cycle
on Denon, and Bernstein's VPO 5th - and Bernstein's 1966 version and
Tennstedt's were both recorded in Walthamstow Town Hall, if you're
interested) it has the genuine feel of an occasion. The first part is perhaps
somewhat flabby, but the second part is held together remarkably tautly,
certainly far more so than Tennstedt, and - for once - the conclusion of part
two is actually mightier and more impressive than that of part 1. If you don't
know this symphony and want a cheap way of discovering what all the fuss is
about, I'd heartily recommend this - as, indeed, I would the Kubelik, another
fairly swift, single-disc Eighth which has, for some unaccountable (to me)
reason, received fairly bad press over the years.

One recording which, although ruled out on the grounds of recording (the
extra brass at the close of Part I are simply inaudible) but which may augur
well for the future, is Pierre Boulez's from 1975 (the opening night of the
Proms if memory serves). Boulez turns in nothing like the frigidly frigidly
intellectual reading some might expect, but a performance of glowing affection.

Incidentally, is anyone ever going to release the legendary 1959 Horenstein
performance, recorded live in the Royal Albert Hall? Credited as doing more
than any other single event to spur the Mahler revival in England, this is an
important performance, although not, without its flaws. The balance shifts
around, as if the BBC engineers were trying throughout the performance to get
it right, and neither the singing nor playing are immaculate. But, the final coda
has a glowing inevitability, a sense of awesome power totally under the
conductor's control, which is rare indeed. Descant were apparently planning a
release, but they seem to have gone the way of all flesh, although there are
persistent rumours of an imminent CD reissue.