The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. As it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is normally presented with far fewer than a thousand performers and Mahler greatly disapproved of the name. The work was composed in a single inspired burst at his Maiernigg villa in southern Austria in the summer of 1906. The last of Mahler's works that was premiered in his lifetime, the symphony was a critical and popular success when he conducted the Munich Philharmonic in its first performance, in Munich, on 12 September 1910.
The fusion of song and symphony had been a characteristic of Mahler's early works. In his "middle" compositional period after 1901, a change of style led him to produce three purely instrumental symphonies. The Eighth, marking the end of the middle period, returns to a combination of orchestra and voice in a symphonic context. The structure of the work is unconventional: instead of the normal framework of several movements, the piece is in two parts."1." and "2. Teil": see primarily Mahler's manuscript (Munich, Baayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. ms. 13719, ), pp. 5 and 79 (of the digital object – the author uses the spelling "Theil") and the first edition (Wien, 1911), pp. 3 and 75; also, the program for the American premiere showed below, §§§1.3.2 Subsequent performances, which lists "Part I" and "Part II". Part I is based on the Latin text of Veni creator spiritus ("Come, Creator Spirit"), a ninth-century Christian hymn for Pentecost, and Part II is a setting of the words from the closing scene of Goethe's Faust. The two parts are unified by a common idea, that of redemption through the power of love, a unity conveyed through shared musical themes.
Mahler had been convinced from the start of the work's significance; in renouncing the pessimism that had marked much of his music, he offered the Eighth as an expression of confidence in the eternal human spirit. In the period following the composer's death, performances were comparatively rare. However, from the mid-20th century onwards the symphony has been heard regularly in concert halls all over the world, and has been recorded many times. While recognising its wide popularity, modern critics have divided opinions on the work; Theodor W. Adorno, Robert Simpson, and Jonathan Carr found its optimism unconvincing, and considered it artistically and musically inferior to Mahler's other symphonies. Conversely, it has been compared by Deryck Cooke to Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as a defining human statement for its century.
History
Background By the summer of 1906, Mahler had been director of the Vienna Hofoper for nine years. Throughout this time his practice was to leave Vienna at the close of the Hofoper season for a summer retreat, where he could devote himself to composition. Since 1899 this had been at Maiernigg, near the resort town of Maria Wörth in Carinthia, southern Austria, where Mahler built a villa overlooking the Wörthersee.Blaukopf, p. 137 In these restful surroundings Mahler completed his Symphonies No. 4, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7, his Rückert songs and his song cycle Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children").Blaukopf, pp. 158, 165, 203
Until 1901, Mahler's compositions had been heavily influenced by the German folk-poem collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Youth's Magic Horn"), which he had first encountered around 1887. (4. Prague 1885–86 and Leipzig 1886–88) The music of Mahler's many Wunderhorn settings is reflected in his Symphonies No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4, which all employ vocal as well as instrumental forces. From about 1901, however, Mahler's music underwent a change in character as he moved into the middle period of his compositional life.Cooke, p. 71 Here, the more austere poems of Friedrich Rückert replace the Wunderhorn collection as the primary influence; the songs are less folk-related, and no longer infiltrate the symphonies as extensively as before.Mitchell, Vol. II p. 32 During this period Symphonies No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7 were written, all as purely instrumental works, portrayed by Mahler scholar Deryck Cooke as "more stern and forthright ..., more tautly symphonic, with a new granite-like hardness of orchestration".
Mahler arrived at Maiernigg in June 1906 with the draft manuscript of his Seventh Symphony; he intended to spend time revising the orchestration until an idea for a new work should strike.La Grange (2000), pp. 426–427 The composer's wife Alma Mahler, in her memoirs, says that for a fortnight Mahler was "haunted by the spectre of failing inspiration";A. Mahler, p. 102 Mahler's recollection, however, is that on the first day of the vacation he was seized by the creative spirit, and plunged immediately into composition of the work that would become his Eighth Symphony.A. Mahler, p. 328
Composition Two notes in Mahler's handwriting dating from June 1906 show that early schemes for the work, which he may not at first have intended as a fully choral symphony, were based on a four-movement structure in which two "hymns" surround an instrumental core.La Grange (2000), p. 889 These outlines show that Mahler had fixed on the idea of opening with the Latin hymn, but had not yet settled on the precise form of the rest. The first note is as follows:
Hymn: Veni creator Scherzo Adagio: Caritas ("Christian love") Hymn: Die Geburt des Eros ("The birth of Eros")
The second note includes musical sketches for the Veni creator movement, and two bars in B minor which are thought to relate to the Caritas. The four-movement plan is retained in a slightly different form, still without specific indication of the extent of the choral element:
Veni creator Caritas Weihnachtsspiele mit dem Kindlein ("Christmas games with the child") Schöpfung durch Eros. Hymne ("Creation through Eros. Hymn")
From Mahler's later comments on the symphony's gestation, it is evident that the four-movement plan was relatively short-lived. He soon replaced the last three movements with a single section, essentially a dramatic cantata, based on the closing scenes of Goethe's Faust, the depiction of an ideal of redemption through eternal womanhood (das Ewige-Weibliche).Kennedy, p. 77 Mahler had long nurtured an ambition to set the end of the Faust epic to music, "and to set it quite differently from other composers who have made it saccharine and feeble."Mitchell, Vol. III p. 519 In comments recorded by his biographer Richard Specht, Mahler makes no mention of the original four-movement plans. He told Specht that having chanced on the Veni creator hymn, he had a sudden vision of the complete work: "I saw the whole piece immediately before my eyes, and only needed to write it down as though it were being dictated to me."
The work was written at a frantic pace—"in record time", according to the musicologist Henry-Louis de La Grange.La Grange (2000), p. 890 It was completed in all its essentials by mid-August, even though Mahler had to absent himself for a week to attend the Salzburg Festival.Kennedy, p. 149La Grange (2000), pp. 432–447 Mahler began composing the Veni creator hymn without waiting for the text to arrive from Vienna. When it did, according to Alma Mahler, "the complete text fitted the music exactly. Intuitively he had composed the music for the full strophes [verses]." Although amendments and alterations were subsequently carried out to the score, there is very little manuscript evidence of the sweeping changes and rewriting that occurred with his earlier symphonies as they were prepared for performance.Mitchell, Vol. III pp. 523–525
With its use of vocal elements throughout, rather than in episodes at or near the end, the work was the first completely choral symphony to be written.Kennedy, p. 151 Mahler had no doubts about the ground-breaking nature of the symphony, calling it the grandest thing he had ever done, and maintaining that all his previous symphonies were merely preludes to it. "Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving." It was his "gift to the nation ... a great joy-bringer."La Grange (2000), p. 926
Reception and performance history
Premiere
Mahler made arrangements with the impresario Emil Gutmann for the symphony to be premiered in Munich in the autumn of 1910. He soon regretted this involvement, writing of his fears that Gutmann would turn the performance into "a catastrophic Barnum and Bailey show".Blaukopf, pp. 229–232 Preparations began early in the year, with the selection of choirs from the choral societies of Munich, Leipzig and Vienna. The Munich Zentral-Singschule provided 350 students for the children's choir. Meanwhile, Bruno Walter, Mahler's assistant at the Vienna Hofoper, was responsible for the recruitment and preparation of the eight soloists. Through the spring and summer these forces prepared in their home towns, before assembling in Munich early in September for three full days of final rehearsals under Mahler.Carr, pp. 206–207 His youthful assistant Otto Klemperer remarked later on the many small changes that Mahler made to the score during rehearsal: "He always wanted more clarity, more sound, more dynamic contrast. At one point during rehearsals he turned to us and said, 'If, after my death, something doesn't sound right, then change it. You have not only a right but a duty to do so.'"Heyworth, p. 48
For the premiere, fixed for 12 September, Gutmann had hired the newly built Neue Musik-Festhalle, in the Munich International Exhibition grounds near Theresienhöhe (now a branch of the Deutsches Museum). This vast hall had a capacity of 3,200; to assist ticket sales and raise publicity, Gutmann devised the nickname "Symphony of a Thousand", which has remained the symphony's popular subtitle despite Mahler's disapproval. Among the many distinguished figures present at the sold-out premiere were the composers Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns and Anton Webern; the writers Thomas Mann and Arthur Schnitzler; and the leading theatre director of the day, Max Reinhardt. Also in the audience was the 28-year-old British conductor Leopold Stokowski, who six years later would lead the first United States performance of the symphony.
Up to this time, receptions of Mahler's new symphonies had usually been disappointing. However, the Munich premiere of the Eighth Symphony was an unqualified triumph; as the final chords died away there was a short pause before a huge outbreak of applause which lasted for twenty minutes. Back at his hotel Mahler received a letter from Thomas Mann, which referred to the composer as "the man who, as I believe, expresses the art of our time in its profoundest and most sacred form".A. Mahler, p. 342
The symphony's duration at its first performance was recorded by the critic-composer Julius Korngold as 85 minutes.La Grange (2000), pp. 913 and 918 This performance was the last time that Mahler conducted a premiere of one of his own works. Eight months after his Munich triumph, he died at the age of 50. His remaining works—Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth"), his Symphony No. 9 and the unfinished Symphony No. 10—were all premiered after his death.
Subsequent performances
On the day following the Munich premiere Mahler led the orchestra and choruses in a repeat performance. During the next three years, according to the calculations of Mahler's friend Guido Adler the Eighth Symphony received a further 20 performances across Europe.Carr, p. 222 These included the Dutch premiere, in Amsterdam under Willem Mengelberg on 12 March 1912, and the first Prague performance, given on 20 March 1912 under Mahler's former Vienna Hofoper colleague, Alexander von Zemlinsky. Vienna itself had to wait until 1918 before the symphony was heard there.