Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand”
Ricarda Merbeth, soprano · Elza van den Heever, soprano
Elisabeta Marin, soprano · Stella Grigorian, alto
Jane Henschel, alto · Johan Botha, tenor
Boaz Daniel, baritone · Kwangchoul Youn, bass
Wiener Singakademie · Slovakian Philharmonic Chorus
Vienna Choir Boys · ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester
Bertrand de Billy, conductor
It is the greatest I have ever composed, wrote Gustav
Mahler after completing his Eighth Symphony. This
remark did not only refer to the gigantic forces of
singers and instrumentalists required by the score,
but also to the idea that is conveyed in sound. By
contrasting the Whitsuntide hymn “Veni creator
spiritus” with the closing scene from Goethe’s “Faust
II”, Mahler expresses the close spiritual relationship
between art and religion: the reconciliation with the
idea of spiritual love.
This CD is a live recording of a concert on March 27,
2010 that was performed in the Vienna Konzerthaus.
It is particularly attractive due to the outstanding
group of soloists, which includes Johan Botha, Jane
Henschel and Kwangchoul Youn. Bertrand de Billy
also proves his ability here to bring out the finest, subtlest
music-making from even the largest orchestral
and choral bodies.
"...the crux of the entire work"
Observations on reactions to Gustav
Mahler’s Symphony No. 8
It is now just over a hundred years since the
world premiere, on September 12, 1910, of
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in what
was then the Neue Musikfesthalle in Munich,
conducted by the composer. This anniversary,
coupled with the two Mahler anniversaries:
150 years since his birth (July 7,
1860), followed by the 100th anniversary of
his death (May 18, 1911), have created an
unprecedented proliferation of performances
of a work which not only causes considerable
problems for every large concert promoter
in a logistic sense, but also places enormous
demands on all the participants in a performance
of this work.
Perhaps it is a good thing that the 8th Symphony
is only now gradually finding its way
onto the international concert scene. Up to
the end of his life, the composer regarding
this work as his best and most important
composition, even at a time when he was
working on his 10th Symphony (uncompleted),
which therefore means after completion
of his Lied von der Erde and the 9th Symphony,
which are generally regarded as representing
the pinnacles of Mahler’s creative output.
When conversation turns towards the
8 th Symphony, one will very soon and frequently
encounter doubt, mistrust and blatant
rejection – even from experienced and
well-known musicians who otherwise treat
Mahler’s compositions with respect. If one
attempts, by means of detailed discussions,
to discover the justification for this rejection,
one often rapidly encounters two reasons:
even the musicians themselves are often only
familiar with the 8 th Symphony on a superficial
level. Ok, maybe they have heard the
piece in some performance or recording, but
few of them have considered serious study of
the score to be worthwhile. This reluctance
to study the score of the 8 th Symphony to the
same extent as this composer’s other works
forms the second cause, namely that there is
hardly a symphonic work weighed down by
the circumstances of its world premiere and
the reactions which followed it as this composition.
The unfortunate subtitle of concert
promoter Emil Guttmann, who organized
the world premiere in September 1910 in
Munich, still accompanies the work today:
“Symphony of a Thousand”. Although, after
the premiere, it was very rare for over a thousand
participants to be involved in a single
performance, the aura of the colossal and the
excessive has hung round the work’s neck like
a lead weight. On the other hand, almost
every performance of the 8 th Symphony (even
if it is rare to experience even one performance
which adequately lives up to the work’s
enormous demands) is always a triumphant
success. One could almost believe that this
symphony, its message and the overwhelming
enthusiasm which Mahler composed into
the work, reached the audience far earlier
than it reached many interpreters.
In the past, even educated music scholars
such as Hans Mayer, whose pronouncements
regarding Richard Wagner still remain some of
the most clear-sighted remarks made among
the vast literature which has been published
on the master of Bayreuth, have hardly been
less forthcoming with their doubts about the
apparently very disparate literary sources of
this symphony as Theodor W. Adorno in his
groundbreaking book about Mahler from
1960. When even great masters such as these
show not only doubt, but also downright
self-evident rejection toward the composition
of a composer whose works they otherwise
highly value, it is no wonder that even serious
musicians often do not even make a first
stab at really getting to know the material in
detail. In particular Adorno’s negative influence
on the reception of the 8 th Symphony
still has proven resonance today. In his book,
T.W. Adorno not only accuses Mahler of
having restorative and ornamental leanings,
but heaps a lively flood of insults on precisely
this composition: “symbiotic gigantic tome”,
“a vulgarization of Hegel-like aesthetics in its
contents … like that which flourishes in eastern
kingdoms these days”, “permeated by the elevating
exhilaration of a singing competition … as
in the Mastersingers”, the “simplified form”, the
second movement “is squeezed into the restrictive
continuo pattern in a stylized manner”, the
“unconvincing affirmation” of the first part of
the second movement becomes suffused,
according to Adorno, with the “phantasma
of
simplicity”. All of this is dashed off in an
ill-substantiated and sparsely reflexive argument,
untypical of Adorno, of less than two
pages. This was atypical of a man who, with
this book, had done more than anyone else
before him (and only very few after him) to
promote a positive, pioneering and openminded
Mahler reception.
The origins of the literary source material
for the two parts of the symphony are separated
by a period of almost a thousand years:
the Latin Whitsuntide hymn “Veni, creator
spiritus” – written between 800 and 850 and
accredited to church father Hrabanus Maurus
– and Goethe’s conclusion of his “principal
work”, the closing scene from Faust –
which is still regarded by many as the most
complex and profound work of theatrical poetry
in the German language. It is precisely
the alleged qualitative divergence of both poems
which led to Hans Mayer’s attack on the
work, quoted above. Although he usually appeared
to know everything, he did not know
(as very likely Mahler himself did not know)
that Goethe, the Weimar prince of poetry, at
that moment was not only particularly fond
of this Whitsuntide hymn, but had himself
finished his own, never published translation
and was trying to persuade his house composer
Zelter to set it to music. It makes one
curious to discover whether, if Mahler had
been aware of this fact, he had perhaps considered
setting the piece in a German translation
– and then of course naturally the one by
Goethe; and then it would also be interesting
to know how Hans Mayer would then have
evaluated the cohesion and quality of both
movements in this context. The charge of a
lack of cohesion between the two parts is one
of the oldest and most tenacious prejudices
against the 8th Symphony. Even here, one suspects
that the critics had neither studied the
way Mahler had used the Whitsuntide hymn,
nor were acquainted with its exact translation
or even, in many cases, with Goethe’s Faust!
One often overlooks the fact that Mahler always
took things which inspired him and appealed
to him from his literary source material
(whether it was “Wunderhorn” texts, the
poetry of Klopstock or Nietzsche), reorganized
the texts, shortened them or expanded
them with his own words – i.e. re-interpreting
them through his own understanding.
In his use of the Whitsuntide hymn, Mahler
proceeds in an equally radical manner as with
his texts, but unites in complete fundamental
understanding with Goethe’s approach
to this emphatic appeal to creative genius –
the alleged author Hrabanus Maurus would
probably have been just as unimpressed with
the manipulation and the cohesion of his text
as Klopstock or Nietzsche would have been
about the way their texts were used in the 2nd
and 3rd Symphonies. Even if Mahler very probably
wasn’t familiar with Goethe’s translation
of the hymn, he was, however, a real Goethe
connoisseur, and had probably read Goethe’s
thesis from Maxims and Reflections: “light and
spirit … are the highest conceivable indivisible
energies”. And one should also be aware that
Mahler was carrying the plan of setting the
final scene of Faust to music around with
him long before he actually started drafting
out his 8 th Symphony.
The reality of the work is almost diametrically
opposite to all its slanderous criticisms.
The relationship in terms of content between
the “Veni, creator” and the emphasis in the
final scene from Faust can be very easily demonstrated.
This is also true of the numerous
musical bridges which Mahler builds, like indicator
arrows, between the meaning reference
points of both settings. The 8th Symphony is
no longer a pure polyphonic masterpiece, like
one could study so excellently in the 5th and
particularly the 7 th Symphony, because Mahler
drew on the source materials according to
a much more eclectic structure. In precisely
this work, as in none other before, Mahler
revealed himself to be capable of masterfully
commanding all musical structures, whether
it is sonata form (1st movement), variation,
hymn or fugue, song or choral. By this point
in his life, Mahler simply had the entire repertoire
of compositional skills at his disposal
and he used these technical masterstrokes
superbly – and with passion! The eminent
significance of the work’s key relationships
is usually pushed far into the background.
E-flat major, E major and E-flat minor characterize
the meaning of this symphony to an
extremely decisive degree and even here, in
his use of keys, Mahler reveals himself to be at
the pinnacle of his ability.
Merely his adherence to the form of the
symphony, but one which is “sung from beginning
to end”, provoked Mahler’s contemporaries
to criticize, but Mahler was
unswerving
in his intention to create with every symphony
a part of the world and an individual
philosophical cosmos, and only a master of
all musical structures could have achieved this
masterpiece in such an unbelievably short
time. The draft score was created within an
unbelievable three months! Mahler drew
from an embarrassment of riches, both in
terms of craftsmanship and musical inspiration.
It is clear that, despite remaining true
to the symphonic form, structures such as
the cantata, oratorio and opera also stood at
Mahler’s disposal as well as every possibility
within the structure of a symphony. Since
the 2nd Symphony, the use of human voices
in Mahler’s symphonies comes as no surprise.
The 8th Symphony differs, however, in that the
human voice is deployed as an equal alongside
the instrumental orchestral parts. This is
what makes performance of the voice parts so
unusually difficult and is clearly different to
the other symphonies, in which individual
singers sometimes step forward in a solo capacity.
For obvious reasons, it is not possible to
undertake an in-depth analysis of the 8th Symphony
here, but the reader is directed towards
the bibliography listed below, particularly the
more recent analyses by Chr. Wildhagen and
P. Revers.
A few observations will serve to complete
what was said at the beginning: even in its
final form, the original concept still relates
to a four movement symphony in terms of
rudimentary analysis, in which the long,
purely orchestral introduction to the second
movement corresponds to a key point in the
structural analysis. Originally, the hymn of
the first movement was to have been followed
by an adagio with the preliminary title
“Caritas”, which forms the only pure orchestral
part of the entire composition and is very
much in the character of this introduction
(and is reflected in the chorus which follows
it). The remains of the original conception of
a Scherzo with Wunderhorn songs, given the
title “Weihnachtsspiele mit dem Kindlein”
(“Christmas games with the little child”) and
a closing hymn to the power of Eros are either
more awkwardly (in the case of the Scherzo)
or more easily (in the Finale) reflected within
the content cohesion with Goethe’s poem
and the work’s final compositional structure.
One does not need to give exaggerated
weight to this original idea in order to understand
the result, but it is clear, and implied by
the speed at which the piece was composed,
that the transition from original conception
to the final shape of the work was not such
a great distance for the composer to travel as
one might imagine. But it is also one of many
indications that the 8th Symphony does not,
as is often stated, fall outside the canon of
the other Mahler symphonies, it rather fits in
very well if one is prepared to put aside the
external circumstances of the first performance
and its consequences and concentrate
on analyzing the material itself.
In his interpretation, Christian Wildhagen
has in particular impressively highlighted
the narrow content cross references
by precise textual analysis, on the one hand,
and their parallel musical equivalents, on
the other. It is actually surprising that wellfounded
and logically grounded studies of
this symphony have taken so long to appear.
The study mentioned first took place
90(!) years after the world premiere. What
is more, Mahler’s instructions in the score
are clear, the musical cross references are not
at all hidden or difficult to interpret. And
Mahler’s words, spoken during rehearsals for
the first performance, have always been adequately
known: “the bridge goes over to the
end of ‘Faust’. This point is the crux of the entire
work”. Here Mahler was referring to his
deployment of the “Accende lumen sensibus”
in the first movement and its reappearance
for the words in the second movement in the
chorus of angels “… wer immer strebend sich
bemüht, den können wir erlösen” (“… whoever
always continues to strive, we can redeem
him”).
A substantial key to understanding the
work can already be seen merely in these
words handed down to us. The real complex
of meaning for both movements of Mahler’s
8th is essentially a theme already deployed
in earlier symphonies. The final movement
of the 3rd Symphony in particular can easily
be seen as representing an orchestral sketch
of ideas for the 8th: Mahler’s life theme of
the vision of comprehensive, redeeming and
creative love. Christian Wildhagen’s analysis
correctly reveals that the “Accende” theme in
the second movement develops “into the leading
theme of redeeming love” and controls vast
parts with an “almost mono-thematic
tendency”. The original idea of the Caritas from the
first drafts of this composition is, of course,
also reflected, as are those of the Eros, in the
Finale of the symphony – when understood
naturally in a higher, all-embracing concept
which exceeds the purely human.
The accusation that the appearance of
the anchorites (who therefore occupy the position
of the Scherzo in the work’s original
four movement conception) has the effect of
a line up of arias, almost like a song club, fails
to recognize that Goethe’s source material already
implies this at a purely dramaturgical
level: the anchorites are followed by the angels
and then the women – the “eternal feminine”,
the ascent toward the highest essence
of love (comparison can be made with the 3rd
Symphony here!), which is congenially represented
in its musical structure. Furthermore,
the characters of the figures which appear
are highly differentiated and impressively
sketched and enhanced.
Towards the end of the work, the texture
of musical cross connections becomes
ever denser; focusing with fascinating logic
towards the Finale, the “Chorus mysticus”,
which in formal structure takes the place of a
coda. As well as the 3rd Symphony, this also recalls
the 2nd Symphony in its body of thought.
Whereas in the “Resurrection Symphony”
the words of Mahler are “Sterben werd ich,
um zu leben” (“I will die in order to live”),
the composer now sets Goethe’s words on
the metamorphosis of Faust’s soul to a new,
refined, higher existence: the ideal of the
conquest of death into a love which stands
above all things. The 8th Symphony closes
with the “Veni, creator” theme once more –
the springboard and fundamental idea of this
truly complex and profoundly human work.
Michael Lewin
Translation: tolingo translations