Symphony No. 8

Introduction

“I have just finished my Eighth. It is the grandest thing I have done yet – and so peculiar in content and form that it is really impossible to write anything about it. Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. These are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving,” wrote Gustav Mahler wrote to the famous Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg in August 1906 about his grandiose Symphony No. 8, a work that is traditionally presented by the Hungarian State Opera on International Music Day. Mahler Eighth Symphony fully reveals the composer’s exuberant personality. The title Symphony of a Thousand was the invention of Emil Gutmann, the renowned Munich impresario in charge of producing its world premiere. Indeed, there had never been a symphony requiring such a large apparatus before in the history of music: eight solo singers, two mixed choruses, and a children’s chorus joins the giant orchestra. On 12 September 1910, at the Neue Musik-Festhalle, erected for the Munich Trade Fair, a 171-piece orchestra, a 500-member mixed chorus, a 350-member children’s chorus, 8 soloists, and two isolated groups of four trumpet players and trombone players seated at the other end of the room awaited Mahler on stage as well as an enthusiastic audience, of course: thousands of people, including Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann, Otto Klemperer and Leopold Stokowski.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) studied at the Vienna Conservatory, and he also attended the university there for a while. From 1880, he worked as a conductor in smaller and larger cities of the monarchy, and it was in this year he composed his first outstanding piece, Das klagende Lied (Song of Lamentation). Already in his younger years, he was referred to as an extraordinary conductor who was particularly prominent for his interpretations of Mozart and Wagner. Between 1888 and 1891, he was the director and principal conductor of the Budapest Opera House, where his three-year tenure raised the artistic standard of the institution to a high level. Until 1897, he was the first conductor the Hamburg City Theatre, which was followed by a ten-year period in Vienna and then a three-year period in New York. He died in Vienna.

Mahler’s excellent art of conducting, which manifested itself in the humble service of the truly great ones, was surrounded by general recognition. However, his creative genius caused many contradictions; there were many who belittled his work, and many fans who respected him as the prophet of a new art. In his compositions, Mahler emphasizes the disharmony and tense contradictions of his time with utmost sincerity. He is extreme in his means of expression: sometimes he uses a monstrous orchestral and vocal apparatus that has never been heard before, and sometimes he strives for intimate chamber effects. Mahler composed ten symphonies, the last of which remained unfinished, as well as song cycles (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen – Songs of a Wayfarer, Des Knaben Wunderhorn – The Boy’s Magic Horn, Kindertotenlieder – Songs on the Death of Children). Another significant piece for vocal soloists and a large orchestra is Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), the text of which he compiled from poems by the Chinese poet Li Tai-Po. The work, which was completed just before Mahler’s death, is the summery of the composer’s artistic credo.

Symphony of a Thousand

Despite all its monumentality, Eighth is a symphony by Mahler that is inspired most deeply by chamber music. After all, Mahler needed the enormously expanded chorus and orchestra not only because he wanted to evoke the “entire universe” in his music, he was also curious about the special sound quality that the soft singing of 800 people could produce. Interestingly, the composition is one of Mahler’s most serene – and precisely this serenity makes it perhaps the most moving – piece of music. The two texts that form the basis of the two movements and placed next to each other are the medieval Latin hymn beginning with Veni, Creator Spiritus glorifying the creative spirit, which is sung in the Roman Catholic liturgy at Pentecost, and the closing scene of Goethe’s Faust (which also inspired Schumann and Liszt) create a rich web of interpretation. All this flow of sounds, which unites symphony, cantata, oratorio, song cycle, and motet in a single work, contains an amazing series of ideas in form and compositional technique.

In Mahler’s concept, Veni, Creator Spiritus is a prayer for an elevation of the spirit that subsequently becomes reality in the final scene from Faust. The ideas of heavenly love, grace, and a striving for higher spheres pervade both parts of the symphony. The answer to Part I, essentially an invocation, comes in Part II, in which the blessed state is reached. After a number of successive stages that take us from the uncertainties of a deep forest ravine, with its cliffs, caves, and lions, to the exalted realms at the end, the Mother of Christ appears in person and salvation is announced. Of course, it is somewhat simplistic to call Part I an “invocation” and nothing else. The setting of Veni, Creator goes through an inner evolution of its own, full of dramatic contrasts. After the grandiose opening, the reference to the gifts of God (fons vivus, ignis, caritas – fount of life, fire, love) is reflected by a lyrical secondary idea of an Italianate stamp reminiscent of Verdi’s Requiem.

At the mention of the enemy (Hostem repellas longius – Far from us drive our deadly foe), the music grows into a true battle-scene. And at the words Accende lumen sensibus (O guide our minds with thy blest light), Mahler fashioned a tremendous climax by introducing an important new theme in fortissimo. Despite the numerous dramatic events taking place, Part I remains a hymn: a sacred song in multiple strophes that are all equal in length and meter and essentially similar in importance. Part II, on the other hand, consists of segments that vary widely in meter and structure, and introduces a multitude of dramatis personae. If Veni, Creator Spiritus is in essence a monumental motet, the Faust scene is definitely operatic – it was as close as Mahler ever came to writing an opera himself.