Symphony No 8 - Mahler
Mahler's Eighth isn't the biggest or longest of symphonies. It yields to Havergal Brian's Gothic in size and Glire's Ilya Murometz in length. But, among what might be called the mega-symphonies, it is Mahler's so-called Symphony of a Thousand (the nickname dreamt up by the promoter of the 1910 premiere), which most surely captures the listener's imagination. There is something in the clamorous ambition of the first movement that makes this setting of the hymn Veni creator spiritus at once apparently graspable yet somehow unattainable. It is, however, by any stretch of the imagination, a glorious clamour, demanding a team of vocal soloists with laser-like projection, a large orchestra capable of the sharpest of internal illumination, and the mass of a double chorus supplemented by a choir of children's voices. Yet it is the generally sparer writing of the second part, an often operatic setting of the final scene from part two of Goethe's Faust, which makes the stronger impression. Here Mahler, who was divined by Freud a month before the premiere as having a "Holy Mary complex", achieves greater heights in his ultimate celebration of the "ever-Womanly".
The work's first performances in Northern Ireland were given at Belfast's Waterfront Hall on Friday and Saturday by the Japanese conductor Kazushi Ono with a firm and resolute hand. He painted the large canvas in the broad strokes necessary - there's an awful lot more in Mahler's score than any one reading is ever likely to register - and showed unfaltering judgement in the pacing of the work's most crucial moments.
As at the Munich premiere under the composer, singers from another city were called upon, on this occasion the Chorus of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra adding their strong voices to those of the Belfast Philharmonic Choir and Methodist College Junior Choir. The soloists - Elizabeth Connell and Lada Biriucov (sopranos), Ruby Philogene and Sarah Walker (mezzo sopranos), David Rendall (tenor), Jeffery Black (baritone) and Eric Halfvarson (bass) all did fine stentorian duty, and the Mater Gloriosa of Manuela Uhl exalted, in all senses of the word.
