Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies

Symphony No. 8

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Original LP cover

Mahler's Eighth is his most "baroque" conception. Here his unique style of orchestral polyphony is complemented by a rich antiphony of solo and choral voices – eight soloists and three separate choirs – to achieve a truly cosmic interplay of musical sounds on a flexible, but vast and panoramic scale. It is a pity that, if an unofficial subtitle had to be appended to this work, it was not something like the "Universe Symphony." The epithet "Symphony of a Thousand" evoked by Emil Gutmann is the sort of thing an impresario would and did dream up, and does not really do it justice.

It is obviously not the sheer size of the ensemble that is all-important in a work that features within its vast apparatus a solo mandolin and numerous solos for violin, viola or cello, a work that distinguishes two different kinds of organ sounds, and so on. What is significant is the complex interplay of colors, both in the foreground and in the background, and that is what is meant here by "baroque."

The Eighth is true symphony. It is soundly constructed on extended sonata principles, and every bar is systematically integrated into the developmental scheme.

As his primary woodwind section, the composer indicates 4 flutes, 4 oboes, 3 clarinets, and 4 bassoons, but, he adds, "in heavy choral and string passages, it is recommended that the first woodwinds be doubled." As supplemental woodwinds, he prescribes "several piccolos if possible, but at least two," the same for E-flat or high clarinets, and finally 1 English horn and 1 contrabassoon. The onstage brass section consists of 8 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, and bass tuba, the offstage brass, 4 trumpets (the first part to be tripled if possible), and 3 trombones. The keyboard wind instruments consist of pipe organ and harmonium; the keyboard percussion, glockenspiel, celesta, and piano. The other percussive instruments are timpani, bass drum, cymbals, gong, triangle, and deep bells. The stringed instruments consist of 4 harps and mandolin (both multiplied at will), and of course a very large complement of the regular string choir. The size of the antiphonal choral forces (two mixed choruses and boys' choir) necessary to balance, in turn, the instrumental contingent at all points, easily accounts for the thousand performers celebrated at the Eighth's premiere.

How did Mahler come to conceive such a work at that point in his life? It seems that whenever Mahler reached a crisis in his musical or personal life, his creativity was restored by some poem that rose into his consciousness, demanding to be set to music. The longest hiatus, a "psychological block," which has been astutely analyzed by Dr. Theodor Reik in his book The Haunting Melody, was the nearly two-year block that ended in 1894, and that had prevented the composer from completing his Second Symphony during all that time. The restorative poem in that case was Klopstock's ode, Auferstehen! ("Resurrection!").

A similar crisis took place a year after the completion of the difficult Seventh Symphony, and again it was a hymn that restored his creativity. Dr. Reik recounts that Mahler came to the Austrian Tyrol in the summer of 1906, feeling no creativity or spontaneity, but suddenly "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." This Spiritus Creator was the text of the medieval Latin hymn (Veni, Creator Spiritus) attributed to Hrabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz (776-856), and written to celebrate the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles at Pentecost.

A second source of inspiration was Goethe's Faust, Part II, in which Faust's soul ascends into Heaven. Structurally, Veni serves the function of a classical sonata-allegro movement, while the Faust scene combines the functions of Adagio, Scherzo, and Finale. Mahler thus makes the Veni Creator a plea or invocation to which the Faust scene provides the answer of fulfillment.

It is fascinating to be able to trace one step in the rapid evolution of this scheme. We have a page of an early draft in Mahler's hand, outlining a more conventional four-part scheme of separate movements. Veni Creator Spiritus already stands by itself as the first movement. This was to be followed by an apparently instrumental Scherzo and an Adagio Caritas (these two later reversed). Notice that the word caritas ("bond of love" ) also appears in the text of the Veni Creator. Finally came another choral movement, The Birth of Eros. That this item was intended as a setting from Faust can be inferred from Mahler's letter to his wife:

The tonality of E-flat Major, the key of the "Resurrection" coda of the Second Symphony and the serene Andante of the Sixth, might be said to have chosen Mahler, since in Reik's words it was an "overpowering E-flat Major chord which had occurred to him," along with the opening of the hymn itself, first stated by both adult choirs and then tossed back and forth between them. When the last cry of "Gloria Patri" has echoed away, the whole movement is almost (and should be) perceived as a single shout of joy. Whereas in several prior symphonies, Mahler progresses from an opening to a different closing key for the last movement, here he chooses to return to E-flat Major repeatedly and in a final confirmation. The symphony concludes with an overhead choir of trumpets and trombones storming the heavens by further raising his upward interval of a major seventh into a ninth.

Between the opening and closing E-flat tonalities is a world of expression and varied tone color. We hear the D-flat Major of "Imple superna gratia" which introduces the solo singers, the d minor lament of "lnfirma nostri corporis" which turns the "Veni" theme into a sorrowful dirge, followed by the fantastic nocturne (beginning the development), introduced by the deep tolling of a bell, which transforms the same theme into a flickering but familiar specter of Mahler's night-world. We hear the great E Major outburst of "Accende lumen sensibus" and the fierce e minor of "Hostem repellas," prefacing the colossal double fugue "Ductore sic te praevio," with its march rhythm set in motion by the full organ, which sweeps us irresistibly on into the reprise. And just before the coda begins, we hear the clear call of the boys on "Gloria, gloria Patri Domino."

By juxtaposing liturgical Latin with the vernacular of his own time and place, Mahler acutely departs from 19th-century practices, and anticipates the modern usage of composers like Stravinsky and Elgar. He does not combine the languages within the same continuous movement or section, but separates them with a fairly long and highly evocative instrumental prelude to Part II. This opens in the pre-dawn darkness of e-flat minor, with a chilly tremolo and grouping pizzicatos, outlining in sharpest contrast the same theme with which Part I exultantly ended. At the same time the high woodwinds enter with a three-note dotted figure derived from "Amorem cordibus" (boys' choir), and other chorale motives from Part I that will pervade the entire Faust scene. The prelude later breaks into a wilder section full of passionate yearning (an Allegro moderato) before subsiding into the hushed, expectant opening chorus. The succeeding music, in the form of an Adagio with variations (some much faster) and coda, is sung mostly by male voices, solo and choral. This is the music of the Anchorites, who are depicted against the wild (and of course symbolic) landscape of step rocks and foaming cataracts that is their chosen habitat. The picture is given by the Pater Profundis (faster as in the prelude, Allegro appassionato, e-flat minor), after the Pater Ecstaticus has sung of penance and redemption (Moderato, E-flat Major). Of Goethe's dramatis personae, Mahler omits only the Pater Seraphicus. After the poignant cry, "O Gott, beschwichtige die Gedanken, erleuchte mein bedurtig Herz!" the scene lightens, the pace quickens, and the Scherzo begins in B Major, Allegro deciso.

The Scherzo and Finale sections are intertwined to some degree. That is to say, the Scherzo, which is also in a variation form, gives way at one point to the opening statement of the Finale, later to resume for several more variations. These alternations are fairly easily identifiable, since the Scherzo is sung principally by women's voices, solo or choral, and by boys' voices; but the bounds are fluid rather than rigid. The main effect is of a continually developing and evolving music. The first set of variations is devoted to the interchanges of the Blessed Boys, The Younger Angels, and the More Perfect Angels. The basic mood is familiar from the angelic Wunderhorn songs of the Third and Fourth Symphonies. At "Uns bleibt ein Erdenrest" there is a brief return to the d minor lament of the Veni Creator.

The Finale begins with the arrival of Doctor Marianus, extolling the coming Mater Gloriosa as "Höchste Herrscherin der Welt" and (with chorus) "Jungfrau, rein im schönsten Sinne" (Molto adagio e devoto), and followed by the beautiful chorus, "Dir, der Unberührbaren," with its ethereal E Major prelude for violins, harmonium and harp. Here Goethe introduces an effect not intended to be realized without dramatic staging, as the Mater Gloriosa herself "soars into view," but remains silent for some time. Mahler, in the role of scene designer, paints in the event with his orchestra. The Chorus of Penitent Women provides another magnificent effect with tremolos and arpeggios for harps, piano and celesta. The Scherzo variations resume with the solo songs and trio of the Penitent Women: Magna Peccatrix, Mulier Samaritana, and Maria Aegyptiaca (note here, in g minor, a "preview" of the orientalism of Das Lied von der Erde), and finally Una Poenitentium, Faust's Gretchen, hitherto introduced with the chorus, but now solo, in D Major with mandolin and harps. After the Blessed Boys have been heard again, Gretchen interjects in E-flat Major another and more joyful reprise from the Veni Creator (formerly "Imple superna gratia"). Then the Mater Gloriosa at last sings, calling Gretchen gently "to the higher spheres," as the Finale section resumes in the home key of E-flat Major.

The major and minor modes vie constantly with each other in various keys during the ardent music that follows. Doctor Marianus leads the ecstatic cry of "Blicket auf!", joined antiphonally by the three choruses; and after the final supplication of "Göttin, bleibe gnädig" has echoed and died away, the scene gradually empties in preparation for the great coda, the Chorus Mysticus. The anticipatory interlude that begins on the dominant of E-flat is, if possible, even more ethereal than "Die, der Unberührbaren". The piccolo solo and its treble accompaniment for piano, celesta, harmonium, and harps inhabit a world dimly suggested by Mahler's earlier song "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft". When all is still, there follows the final, hushed entry of the double chorus in six-part harmony with "Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis", surely one of the supremely affecting moments in all music.

— Jack Diether

Text and English Translation

Recorded December, 1963 in the Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah
Producer: Seymour Solomon
Engineer: Marc Aubort and Ed Friedner
Originally release: Vanguard VSD 71120-1 (2 LPs)