Sunday, May 23, 2010

"It's Actually Tempting To Scream as Loudly as You Possibly Can"

Seriously, could anybody but a Jew have written this symphony?

Posted by at 8:51 PM

2 comments:

My Daily Struggles said...

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) is one of the largest choral works in the classical concert repertory. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", though Mahler did not acknowledge the name. The work was composed in a single inspired burst, at Maiernigg in southern Austria in the summer of 1906. The last of Mahler's works that was premiered in his lifetime, the symphony was a considerable critical and popular success when he conducted 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 more mature "middle" compositional period after 1901, a change of style led him to produce a trio of 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 architecture of the work is unconventional; instead of the normal framework of several movements, the piece is in two parts. Part I is a based on the Latin text of a ninth-century Christian Pentecostal hymn Veni creator spiritus, 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 characterised 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, but 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; some find its optimism unconvincing, and consider it artistically and musically inferior to Mahler's other symphonies. However, it has also been compared to the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as a defining human document for its century.

Monday, May 24, 2010
My Daily Struggles said...

Sidney Rothstein conducted the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in two performances at the Philadelphia Armory using 1,000 musicians (orchestra and chorus), which was broadcast on National Public Radio during Philadelphia’s bicentennial celebration in 1976.

Monday, May 24, 2010

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