Gustav Mahler, Symphony no. 8 in E-flat Major

© Helge Krückeberg

‘It is a symphony, an oratorio, a music drama and a mystery of salvation’, Gustav Mahler aptly said of his eighth symphony.

The performance of Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ in the Kuppelsaal of the HCC again marks the fruitful collaboration between Hanover’s musical forces during the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen: nine Hanover choirs perform Mahler’s rarely heard colossal Symphony no. 8 with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Orchestra of the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media and an illustrious line-up of soloists conducted by Ingo Metzmacher.  

In this major work, composed entirely with the choir in mind, Mahler combined two completely disparate texts into a musical world-theatre, and in his own words went beyond the boundaries of symphonic form. The Latin Whitsun hymn ‘Veni creator spiritus’, from the 9th century, makes up the monumental first part, which celebrates the creative power of the spirit. This is followed by the final scene from the second part of Goethe’s Faust, a more punctuated and sometimes almost opera-like music. In this scene the transfiguration of Faust’s aspiring soul reaches a marvellous conclusion in the famous ‘Chorus mysticus’.