Mahler - Symphony No.8
Brewer; Isokoski; Banse; Remmert; Henschel; Wilson-Johnson; Relyea
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus; London Symphony Chorus; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Youth Chorus; Toronto Children's Chorus
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Rattle
EMI 557 9452

Release date March 2005

"All my previous symphonies" claimed Mahler of his Eighth Symphony, "are merely the preludes to this one". History has judged Mahler's output rather differently. Neither of his early champions, Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer, had much time for the so-called "Symphony of a Thousand". It was left to Leopold Stokowski (who was present at the work's Munich première in 1910), Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein to make the case for Mahler's monster work. Even today it must be considered Mahler's Cinderella symphony; for obvious economic reasons, it remains a comparative rarity in the concert hall, and present-day Mahlerians such as Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly and Simon Rattle have all expressed reservations about it. Sir Simon once called it 'a symphony without shadows', which is a pretty fair description of it. It's really more like a gigantic personal creed than a symphony in any conventional sense of the word. It took a performance by Klaus Tennstedt to convince Sir Simon that he should add it to his repertoire, which he did as recently as 2002, in an overwhelming performance with the National Youth Orchestra (and virtually the same soloists as the new EMI recording) at the Proms. After the problems of recording the similarly vast Gurrelieder in Berlin, he chose to return to his old orchestra and its magnificent Symphony Hall to record the Eighth. The result, taped over three nights last June, is the most impressive recording of the piece since Sir Georg Solti's astonishing 1971 Decca version, which in certain respects it resembles. Rattle, like Solti, takes Mahler's Allegro impetuoso indication for the opening hymn Veni Creator Spiritus at its word, haring through the central march-fugue like Wil E Coyote. No-one quite matches Solti's volcanic account of this section, but Rattle runs him very close. At the Gloria Patri Domino, Rattle actually increases the tempo to a rate that's not so much impetuous as downright reckless; somehow, he manages to hold his huge forces together. EMI has provided Sir Simon with a classy octet of soloists, and, characteristically, Rattle proves to be a stickler for holding his soloists and choristers to Mahler's extremely explicit dynamic marks. As Riccardo Chailly once observed "...the big problem is that you begin with the climax...before you know it, everyone is screaming at each other." There's no screaming here! In the Faust movement, Rattle brings wide-eyed wonder and, where he can, charm to the music; chez Solti, there's an altogether tougher, craggier response. It's partly a matter of the tonal profiles of the orchestras concerned. Inevitably, the CBSO is outgunned by Solti's superb Chicagoans, and it lacks the depth of tone that, for instance, Chailly's Royal Concertgebouw players can bring to bear. That said, the CBSO play marvellously for their former Music Director; the string playing, so often a weakness in British orchestras, is often very beautiful. (Try them at track 18 - the point where Mater Gloriosa 'soars into view'). Any attempt at recording this piece in stereo is inevitably going to involve compromises. The EMI engineers have placed the soloists rather far forward - roughly speaking you're in Row E of the stalls - and the balance doesn't invariably flatter them. The excellent choirs, who - most unusually - sound as if they understand what they are singing about, are not too recessed, and Sir Simon and the engineers ensure that the often dense counterpoint of Part 1 is clarified. The isolated brass group, which appears in the closing stages of both parts, is perfectly audible, but isn't separated from the rest of the orchestra; Solti's engineers keep the brass group quite separate, but the effect sounds rather odd as two different acoustics are involved. Decca also had to tack the organ part on separately, as the Sofiensaal lacked an organ; you can certainly hear the joins! Which is all a roundabout way of saying that I'm looking forward to hearing the new Eighth on SACD when EMI finally gets going with the new format. Even in plain old stereo, though, Rattle's Eighth is a stirring experience, and undoubtedly one of the highlights of Rattle's Mahler series.

Sandy Matheson