United Kingdom Mahler Symphony No.8, ‘Symphony of a Thousand’: Soloists, Philharmonia Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, City of London Choir, Schola Cantorum of The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, Tiffin Boys’ Choir, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 23.10.2022. (JPr)
Sarah Wegener (soprano) – Magna Peccatrix
Jacquelyn Wagner (soprano) – Una Poenitentium, Gretchen
Regula Mühlemann (soprano) – Mater Gloriosa
Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano) – Mulier Samaritana
Claudia Huckle (contralto) – Maria Aegyptiaca
Vincent Wolfsteiner (tenor) – Doctor Marianus
Benedict Nelson (baritone) – Pater Ecstaticus
James Platt (bass) – Pater Profundus
It is a story value retelling how on 12 and 13 September 1910 the primary efficiency of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony within the Exhibition Hall, Munich, was one of many earliest and most profitable of PR stunts by a live performance promoter when he gave it the title ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. There had been 171 instrumental gamers and 858 singers concerned and so it actually was true on that event. There was nothing like that quantity – refrain of 400 and orchestra of 100-plus – on the Royal Albert Hall and nonetheless these concerned stuffed each out there house within the choir seats and on the platform.
Mahler’s Eighth stands on the pinnacle of the choral repertoire aspect by aspect with Beethoven’s Ninth. I’m repeating myself with the background to the work however it is crucial: Mahler was nearing the tip of his all-too-short life and had appeared, with this work, to have overcome the darkness of his Sixth and Seventh Symphonies but was clearly nonetheless in despair as he labored all of the summer season earlier than the Eighth’s premiere on his Tenth Symphony which might stay unfinished on his dying a mere eight months later.
The Eighth Symphony was composed in a short time in the summertime of 1906 when – as Mahler defined – ‘The Spiritus Creator took hold of me and shook me and drove me on for the next eight weeks until my greatest work was done.’ For Mahler this was one thing of an epiphany affording him the chance – as an artist – to turn out to be enlightened by his artwork. The extra classical Part I is predicated round a Latin hymn (‘Veni, creator spiritus’) that entreats the creator spirit, entails a choral outburst, develops by the introduction of the soloists and kids’s voices, accommodates a contrapuntal double fugue march … and ends jubilantly and triumphantly (as within the clunky printed translation) with ‘Glory be to the Father, and to his Son, who rose from the dead and to our Advocate and Comforter for ever and ever.’
Mahler initially envisioned a traditional four-movement symphony however ultimately merely selected one additional motion. So ‘Veni, creator spiritus’ is coupled with a looser Part II setting of the ultimate scene from Goethe’s Faust, in German, one thing extra akin to music drama and presumably hinting on the opera composer Mahler by no means lived lengthy sufficient to be. After a prelude – which reminds the listener of Wagner’s Parsifal – we recognize that the orchestration is barely much less dense, the soloists at the moment are ‘named’ characters, and all the pieces results in a very life-affirming apotheosis when with a hushed whisper the Chorus Mysticus reveals how ‘The Eternal Feminine draws heavenward’. Mahler thought of this to occur by the ‘force of love’ and the ending additionally appears to affirm that – though our bodily our bodies might decay – Spirit is eternal. If ever music can verify a ‘faith’ in a ‘higher power’ or to ‘redeem’ a soul (in all probability within the Wagnerian sense by selfless love) it’s this symphony and will need to have carried out so for Mahler right now in his life. He thought of the Eighth Symphony to be his ‘most important work’ and ‘greatest achievement’ … and it was the most important success of his composing life.
That first 1910 efficiency was recorded as being 85 minutes. This one by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra beneath their music director Vasily Petrenko was barely 77 minutes together with a quick pause between the 2 elements because the soloists moved from the again to the entrance. Journeys of Discovery is the overarching theme of Petrenko’s London live shows with the RPO. His programmes embody works that confront ‘What is it to be human?’ and ‘What is our place in the world?’: Mahler’s Eighth poses these and different existential questions. Sadly I discovered Petrenko’s Mahler moderately rampant, particularly in Part I, and total the symphony lacked the transcendence I hope for, and nor was it the overwhelming expertise I used to be anticipating from the forces concerned. (I do know, in fact, that many within the Royal Albert Hall who jumped to their toes as quickly because it all ended for a standing ovation will disagree.) On the plus aspect nonetheless, the RPO’s taking part in sounded splendidly exact as they joined Petrenko on the musical rollercoaster experience, though it lacked, for me, the emotion another conductors have delivered to it. Undeniably, there have been moments of nice refinement and delicacy corresponding to when Mater Gloriosa soars into view in Part II and all of the climaxes appeared completely formed.
Perhaps it was my ears – or a leftover of the Royal Albert Hall’s infamous acoustic downside – however Part I used to be a wall of sound from the soloists and the massed choirs (Philharmonia Chorus, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, City of London Choir and two kids’s ones). Mahler’s overlapping cries of reward to the Holy Spirit had been significantly vague on this event. I ponder if Petrenko’s tempi had been simply too brisk, though the contributions of the at all times dependable Schola Cantorum of The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School and Tiffin Boys’ Choir had been exemplary within the circumstances. Words had been a problem all through and it might have helped to have a translation projected on screens across the Royal Albert Hall. Nobody close to me was studying it within the programme and the viewers would have been capable of make extra of a real connection to all they had been listening to in the event that they knew what was really being sung about.
In Part II particularly, the feminine voices – pure-voiced sopranos Sarah Wegener and Jacquelyn Wagner, rich-sounding mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston and contralto Claudia Huckle – proved far stronger as a quartet than the lads (or moderately quintet with the radiant Regula Mühlemann’s small contribution as Mater Gloriosa from the organ loft). Sadly, tenor Vincent Wolfsteiner’s Doctor Marianus undermined their glorious work. His singing all through this Mahler Eighth was blighted by some constricted prime notes and his Tannhäuser-like contribution close to the tip – along with his enchantment to ‘Jungfrau, Mutter, Königin, Göttin’ (‘Virgin, Mother, Queen, Goddess’) – was not the spotlight it should be. Otherwise, baritone Benedict Nelson – a late alternative for the marketed singer – easily intoned the paean of Pater Ecstaticus to everlasting love and James Platt impressed along with his cavernous bass tones as Pater Profundus.
It all ended effectively with an unearthly Chorus Mysticus; I want the remaining had resonated with me half as a lot.
Jim Pritchard