Mahler's 8th - Do you like it?

[ChamberNut]

Never warmed up to this symphony by Mahler, even though I've pretty warmed up a little to all (and a lot to some).

[owlice]

You need an exclamation point after the "Yes" option!! (Feel free to take one of mine!)

[ChamberNut]

You need an exclamation point after the "Yes" option!! (Feel free to take one of mine!)

 

[not edward]

I don't think I understand it yet. But that's OK--I have time to go back to it.

[ChamberNut]

I don't think I understand it yet. But that's OK--I have time to go back to it.

I agree, I just haven't felt the urge to revisit it.

[Dr. Dread]

What's a Mahler?

[ChamberNut]

What's a Mahler?

My dogs

[owlice]

Well, great! Now I need to change my vote and don't see how to do so!

I like all the Mahler symphonies, but especially the 2nd, 6th, and 8th. (It perhaps helps that I've performed the 2nd and 8th several times.)

[owlice]

Ooooooo, thanks!!!

[ChamberNut]

Well, great! Now I need to change my vote and don't see how to do so!

I reset it to zero.    Sorry, I thought I had set it to "Allow users to change their vote", but I don't think that feature has actually ever worked.

[bhodges]

It is arguably my favorite of all of Mahler's symphonies.  But then, I am generally drawn to huge works for orchestra and chorus, e.g., Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony, Britten's War Requiem, etc.  One thrill of the Eighth is its sheer massiveness--the sound produced by all those people onstage.  And the work's disparate halves--the joyous first, contrasted with the mysterious, ethereal second--somehow hold together as one vast journey. 

Lately I like slower tempi in this piece, which is one reason the Solti recording, good as it is, doesn't satisfy me.  Also, the very end of his recording seems oddly anti-climactic compared to other versions.  My favorite (with some caveats) is Chailly, who slows things down considerably.  (I also have his live Eighth from the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam--part of the Chailly Radio Recordings box--and it is even slower!)  His recording also has the benefit of the fantastic Concertgebouw organ.  One of the caveats: the recording is sort of "live, but doctored," since they dropped in Jane Eaglen later.  (I've forgotten at the moment who the original soloist was.) 

As I mentioned on another thread, I haven't heard a number of more recent versions of the piece, many of which sound very promising.  And this Saturday night, I'm hearing it with Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, and am keeping my fingers crossed. 

--Bruce

[Opus106]

One of the caveats: the recording is sort of "live, but doctored," since they dropped in Jane Eaglen later.  (I've forgotten at the moment who the original soloist was.) 

Ugh. Things like that make me go "ugh."

I know there is some amount of "Musicshop-ery" involved in every recording ever made, but those that go to such extremes are not my cup of tea. Like how relatives who never attended the wedding are added into a group photo later through the magic of Photoshop.

[Keemun]

I am "Undecided" because I have yet to listen to the entire work in one sitting.  If my only options were "Yes" or "No" I would have said "No."  But I still have hope that one day I will like Mahler's 8th.

[Wanderer]

It's one of my most favourite Mahler symphonies, but then I, too, have a predilection for big choral works (and this - a massive choral hymn to the Holy Spirit followed by an operatic scene from Goethe's Faust - is positively gargantuan). Its seemingly disparate parts never bothered me; to me the work's charm is greatly enhanced by its ambiguous nature. As for favourite recordings, Segerstam and Chailly are exemplary; monumental and subtle wherever applicable.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I don't really like it since I have no idea what they are singing about and following the text is too much work.

[Cato]

If you have not been Mahlered in a dark alley, you simply have not lived!   

Okay, a concert hall will do: I heard the piece live with Robert Shaw conducting the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus back in the 1990's.  I sat up in the balcony right by the 3 trumpeters who are used at the ends of the movements.  They were from the famous Oberlin School of Music, and they nailed their parts with perfection.

[Cato]

If you have not been Mahlered in a dark alley, you simply have not lived!   

Okay, a concert hall will do: I heard the piece live with Robert Shaw conducting the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus back in the 1990's.  I sat up in the balcony right by the 3 trumpeters who are used at the ends of the movements.  They were from the famous Oberlin School of Music, and they nailed their parts with perfection.

And can anyone explain how today became a Mahler's Eighth Day?!

It should be a Karl Henning Day!  Or at least evening!   0:)

[greg]

This one is my least favorite of his symphonies. I clicked "undecided", though the answer would be closer to both yes and no. There are moments when everything is perfect- possibly my favorite part being that section in my avatar's show- I think it starts at Accende lumen sensibus, if I remember right. Then there are long stretches of music in the second movement which are a drag to sit through. This symphony would be at the bottom of my list, like:
9 2 6 3 10 5 4 7 1 8

The whole two-movement, vocal-based scheme is really something I don't care for.

[mahler10th]

 
And can anyone explain how today became a Mahler's Eighth Day?!

It should be a Karl Henning Day!  Or at least evening!   0:)

Every dog has its day...or at least evening.        

[jlaurson]

If it's not presumptuous (or even if it is): Here's a collection of pieces on Mahler's 8th:


Live Recordings of Mahler's Eighth

Mahler's 8th at the Tyrolean Festival 2008

Glory on the Home Stretch: Mahler's 8th at the Kennedy Center

Alles Vergängliche: Ozawa's Mahler Eighth

and an unedited bit from my upcoming essay on recordings of the 8th, if WETA does indeed get Mahler-Month under way this summer:

The garishly divine Eighth Symphony is the oddest beast of Mahler's, by far. Not because it is difficult to come to terms with (although it can be that, too—even if the Third and Seventh raise more questions) or difficult to enjoy. In fact, given the right amount of patience necessary for any of his symphonies, the Eighth might be more easily enjoyed than most his other symphonies. Grandeur and bombast and a very different musical language—less dense, not Angst-driven, one might even say: confident and optimistic (for once!)—make for that. It sticks out from the rest like a sour thumb, and card carrying Mahler-fanatics tends to look down a little on this Schmachtfetzen  (weepy rag).

Hamming up the mentioned grandeur and the work will irredeemably descend into pomposity. The admittedly effective nickname, "Symphony of a Thousand"—coined by the impresario Emil Gutmann—has not always been helpful to that effect.

In this work it is necessary to capture the second movement on the concluding part of Goethe's Faust II just right—and all too often conductors get it just wrong. There seems an incorrigible trend—especially among Anglo-type conductors (I include Chicago-Solti here)—to meet the symphony in both movements with stride, élan, purpose and goal. Nothing could be more harmful to a work that must shimmer, hover, only evoke, never proclaim. Faust II is, frankly, a drug-hazed, weird read—and although once part of the basic canon of German literature, has very much gone out of fashion. I wonder how many conductors slug through it, before tackling the Mahler 8th.
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