Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) 

Symphony No.8 in E-flat major (Symphony of a Thousand) (1906) 

Scored for: six flutes including piccolo, five oboes including English Horn, six clarinets including bass clarinet, five bassoons including contrabassoon, eight French horns, eight trumpets, seven trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, strings, children’s chorus, chorus, three solo sopranos, two solo mezzo-sopranos, solo tenor, solo baritone, and solo bass
Performance time: 79 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance

While tonight’s concert may not have 1,000 performers, the premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, the so-called “Symphony of a Thousand,” certainly did. The premiere in Munich on September 12, 1910, boasted 850 choristers (including 350 children), 171 instrumentalists, and eight vocal soloists, for a total of 1,030 performers, if you include Mahler on the podium. Understandably, the magnitude and complexity of the high-profile event unnerved Mahler—so much so that he almost pulled out of what he predicted would be a “catastrophic Barnum-and-Bailey performance.” Mahler also disapproved of the sobriquet “Symphony of a Thousand” that impresario Emil Gutmann devised as a marketing ploy. Nevertheless, Gutmann’s tactic worked. The packed audience of over 3,000 not only included the Bavarian royal family and other dignitaries but also such cultural luminaries as composers Richard Strauss, Anton Webern, and Camille Saint-Saëns and writer Thomas Mann. The audience roared with applause, cheers, and foot-stomping during the 30-minute ovation. The successful premiere marked the pinnacle of Mahler’s career and solidified him as a composer of consequence.

During his life, Mahler was better known as a conductor than a composer, earning most of his income on the podium. Amid his busy schedule at the Vienna Court Opera, he could only devote his summers to composition, secluding himself in the Austrian countryside to write without distractions. However, the summer of 1906 presented Mahler with a case of writer’s block. His wife, Alma Mahler, described what happened: “After we arrived at Maiernigg . . . he was haunted by the specter of failing inspiration. Then one morning, just as he crossed the threshold of his studio up in the wood, it came to him—‘Veni Creator Spiritus.’” Mahler later recalled that once the idea for the symphony finally hit him, it came all at once and fully formed—he simply had to write it down as if it were being dictated to him. He composed the majority of the epic symphony in just eight weeks, completing it the following year.

Though this apocryphal story likely over-romanticizes how Mahler’s Eighth Symphony came to be, it is fitting given the text of the first section of the symphony, “Veni Creator Spiritus.” The ninth-century Latin hymn is traditionally sung during the Feast of Pentecost, which commemorates the Holy Spirit’s descent upon the Virgin Mary and the Apostles. It is also commonly sung at coronations, ordinations, and consecrations of bishops and popes. Aptly, the hymn asks the Holy Spirit for inspiration, grace, and strength. Although Mahler does not use the traditional Gregorian chant as the melodic basis for his symphony, he does turn to musical forms of the past, harnessing the dense polyphonic style of Bach within the scope of Classical sonata form. 

After a resounding E-flat-major organ chord, the chorus declaims the opening text in fervent homophony. The opening section sees the two choruses engaged in dense contrapuntal dialogue. At “Imple superna gratia” (“Fill them with heavenly grace”), most of the orchestra melts away, and the soloists slowly emerge, passing the lyrical second theme fluidly between them in a more intimate expression of the opening plea. While using singers in symphonies was nothing new (Beethoven’s Ninth was nearly a century old at this point), Mahler stressed that this work was a symphony for voices, not merely with voices. As such, he treats the voices as instruments, using them to develop melodic material symphonically instead of just to set a mood or express a specific idea in words. Mahler set out to write “a ‘pure’ symphony in which the most beautiful instrument in the world is given its true place—and not simply as one sonority among others, for in my symphony the human voice is after all the bearer of the whole poetic idea.”

Despite the intensity of Part I, it is only an introduction to the main affair. The second part proceeds in a very different manner from the first. Here, Mahler sets the final scene of Goethe’s epic drama-in-verse Faust, Part II (published in 1832), which depicts Faust’s divine redemption after death despite his earthly failings. Now, Mahler was the king of unexpected juxtapositions, often blending the tragic and the frivolous in his symphonies. However, the disparity between the two texts and between Mahler’s musical treatment of the two parts is on another level. Perhaps conscious of the seemingly random assemblage of source material, Mahler underscores their ideological unity through thematic recollection. For instance, the first notes of Part II—the falling interval first heard in the cellos and basses—mirror the initial “Veni” subject. The following ascending phrase then recalls the “Accende lumen sensibus” theme of Part I and can be heard in different guises throughout the symphony, as Mahler considered this phrase the crux of the hymn. Mahler musically highlights similar themes in the text as well. For instance, the melody associated with “Infirma nostri corporis” (“Our feeble flesh”) comes back in Part II when the More Perfect Angels discuss how humanity’s suffering pains them.

Whereas Part I is highly compressed, Part II is more expansive and freeform, traversing multiple musical genres, from solo songs and recitatives to strophic hymns and chorales. An extended orchestral prelude sets the eerie scene among rocky ravines and forests. A group of hermits (Pater Ecstaticus, Pater Profundus, and Doctor Marianus), throngs of angels of different orders, and three penitent women each offer their unique reflections and prayers. The angels soar above carrying Faust’s “immortal essence” after rescuing it from Mephistopheles’ clutches. Gretchen, Faust’s spurned lover, appears as another penitent woman, Una Poenitentium. Though Faust betrayed her in life, she welcomes him into heaven with open arms and prays to the Mater Gloriosa for his salvation. By linking “Veni Creator” with this scene, Mahler makes the philosophical connection between the early Christian expression of the grace of the Holy Spirit and Goethe’s vision of the redemptive power of love and love’s ability to lead us toward the divine. Despite the disparity in language, cultural context, and intended use of these two texts, Mahler makes a convincing musical case for their pairing through his daring and often poignant symphony.

Program Notes by Katherine Buzard