Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860–1911) Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major (“Symphony of a Thousand”) Scored for two piccolos and four flutes, four oboes and English horn, three clarinets, one E-flat clarinet, and one bass clarinet, four bassoons and contrabassoon, eight horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, deep bells, glockenspiel, celesta, piano, harmonium, organ, two harps, mandolin, strings, offstage brass ensemble (four trumpets and three trombones), eight vocal soloists, children’s chorus, and mixed chorus No one was more surprised by the mystical gen- esis of Symphony No. 8 than Mahler himself. Plans for the summer of 1906 had been firmly determined before Gustav and his wife, Alma, left Vienna, where Mahler was director of the Hofoper [today the Vienna State Opera], for their vacation home in Maiernigg. Alma told a comical story about her husband’s intended summer project—revisions to the orchestra- tion of Symphony No. 7. Mahler had carefully packed the drafts and full score at the bottom of his suitcase. Nervous as usual before the de- parture, he opened the luggage and moved the symphonic materials to the top. Then, when he reached the lobby, Mahler again grew anxious and rearranged his baggage. In the end, he and Alma lugged the manuscripts in their arms to Maiernigg. A startling experience on the first day of his vacation altered the summer plans. As Mahler entered the small composition hut ( Häuschen ), “the Spiritus creator took hold of me.” His mind had come under the spell of the ancient Latin chant “Veni, creator spiritus” (“Come, Creator Spirit”). Attributed to various authors from Gregory the Great to Ambrose to Hrabanus Maurus, the text commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Its associated mel- ody might have existed before the verses. Ac- cording to scripture, on that holy day all man- kind received life, fire, soul’s anointing, strength, illumination, and love from the Holy Spirit. The transformative and redemptive power of love emerged as the symphony’s central theme, as the first sketch outline makes evident: I. Hymn: Veni Creator II. Scherzo III. Adagio: Caritas IV. Hymn: Die Geburt des Eros  [The Birth of Eros] Mahler decided at this preliminary stage to draw parallels between the births of the Christian church and the Greek gods, the fire accompany- ing both births, two manifestations of love (“car- itas,” a pure love that springs from high esteem, and erotic love), the Latin and German languag- es, and two different hymn settings. A second outline finds Mahler further manipulating the sacred and secular components. I. Veni creator II. Caritas III. Weihnachtspiele mit dem Kindlein  [Christmas Games with the Little Child] IV. Schöpfung durch Eros. Hymne  [Creation through Eros. Hymn] The original conception clearly emphasized a traditional four-movement structure, though the two sketches reversed the slow ( Caritas ) and fast middle movements. How and when Mahler modified his original scheme to arrive at the final form of the Eighth Symphony remains uncertain. A colossal two- part form replaced—some authors contend that it absorbed—the four-movement symphonic structure. Mahler devoted the first large section to an extended setting of “Veni, creator spiritus.” A new programmatic idea emerged for the sec- ond part, one drawn from a more recent literary classic, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust . Another basic concept also came into focus: the presence of solo voices and choral ensembles employed as another “instrument” within the orchestra. Mahler described his new work as a symphony for chorus, not a symphony with cho- rus. “Can you imagine a symphony that is, from beginning to end, sung?” he excitedly wrote to Richard Specht. In fact, the Eighth is the first entirely choral symphony in history. Mahler had been working feverishly on Veni, creator spiritus when he realized that his musical ideas had overflowed the available text. During consultations with archeologist Fritz Löhr, Mahler came to recognize that he had drawn his text from a defective, incomplete source. Löhr provided the complete text and, miraculously, the words perfectly fit his already-composed music. The conductor Bruno Walter, one of sev- eral people Mahler told of this incident, wrote, “This fortuitous concordance of imagination and reality, not only in the technical but also in the intellectual sense, made a deep impression upon Mahler. Inclined to mysticism, indeed under its spell—like many a great mind, who is greater as a thinker than as a creator—he be- lieved he saw in this concordance the working of a power which reigned of all art and over all life.” With a sense of divine sanction, Mahler proceed- ed to reshape the ending of his symphony into a single, continuous dramatic sequence based on Goethe’s Faust . Other composers, such as Rob- ert Schumann ( Scenes from Goethe’s Faust ) and Franz Liszt ( Faust Symphony ), had recognized the musical potential of the allegorical final scene (“Mountain Gorges”) in the second part of Faust . In this scene, God intervenes to save Faust’s soul from Mephistopheles. The ancho- rites (hermits), tucked away in their mountain dwellings, praise nature as a revelation of divine love. Three female penitents entreat Mater Glo- riosa to have mercy on their souls and that of another sinner, Una Poenitentium (formerly named Gretchen). Una Poenitentium beseeches the Virgin Mother for clemency and a chance to reveal to her former lover, Faust, true heavenly bliss. Only from her place in heaven, the “higher spheres,” can Una Poenitentium guide Faust toward his new, eter- nal life. Mater Gloriosa calls upon all penitents to look up, for it is the “Eternal Feminine [that] draws us heavenward.” The concluding Chorus Mysticus glorifies the Eternal Feminine, which Mahler understood to be the “resting place, the goal, in opposition to the striving and struggling towards the goal (the Eternal Masculine).” Photograph of Gustav Mahler by Moritz Nähr (1907) Mahler’s Haüschen at Maiernigg in the Austrian Alps Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Josef Raabe (1814) RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 100