Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

Eros disappeared from Mahler’s programmatic outline after the initial sketches, although the Greek god continued to exert a metaphorical influence over the symphony. The compos- er himself assumed the guise of Eros—not the boyish, arrow-wielding Cupid, but the classi- cal figure described by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. In his Theogony , Hesiod named Eros among the first deities, along with Gaia and Tar- taros, born out of Chaos. The poet credited this “fairest of the deathless gods” with the ability to “subdue both mind and sensible thought” as well as the powers of repulsion and attraction. Eros separated out the elements from the cha- otic mass (repulsion) and caused the synthesis of these disparate elements into rational matter (attraction). In the Eighth Symphony, Mahler fused an as- tounding variety of musical style elements with his unifying creative force. Compositional tech- niques in Part I hark back to the sacred works of Renaissance and Baroque composers. Massive organ chords and the choral pronouncement of “Veni, creator spiritus” lead to complex contra- puntal writing worthy of Bach. The general im- pression Part I creates approximates the Leipzig Kantor’s major choral works. The eminent Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell proposed that this first section took as its model Bach’s jubilant motet Singet dem Herr nein neues Lied ( Sing to the Lord a New Song ). A greater number of retrospective allusions appear in Part II, a section inspired more by Romantic musical traditions. Certain rhythmic and melodic ingredients demonstrate unambig- uously that Mahler knew Schumann and Liszt’s Faust music. The penitent women are handled with, in Mitchell’s interpretation, “a kind of Mo- zartean innocence in the manner of the Three Boys in The Magic Flute .” There’s an imprint of Richard Wagner as well: Pater Profundis’s open- ing song (“Wie Felsenabgrund mir zu Füssen”) is redolent of Wotan in the Ring cycle, and the chorus of Younger Angels (“Jene Rosen aus den Händen”) recalls a similar flower piece in Parsifal . The completion of this symphonic universe proved as miraculous as its moment of inspira- tion. Mahler sketched the music in three weeks and finished the entire piece in eight. “I have never written anything like it; it is something quite different in both content and style from all my other works, and certainly the biggest thing that I have ever done,” he wrote to Specht. “Nor do I think that I have ever worked under such a feeling of compulsion; it was like a lightning vision—I saw the whole piece immediately be- fore my eyes and only needed to write it down, as though it were being dictated to me.” The Eighth also became the last orchestral work Mahler would bring to life in a joyous, peace- ful state of mind. In the coming year, he would contend with two tragedies—the death of his daughter and the diagnosis of his heart defect— that would change the course of his life and cast a pall over his remaining compositions. His wife, Alma, to whom he dedicated the score, suffered an emotional breakdown, battled de- pression, and began a long-term romantic affair with Walter Gropius. Mahler’s immense conception extended beyond musical structure to the performing forces dis- played on the broad and deep stage of Munich’s International Exhibition Center for the world premiere, which he conducted on September 12, 1910. To promote the forthcoming performance, Emil Gutmann invented the title “Symphony of a Thousand,” which Mahler condemned as “Barnum and Bailey methods.” Nonetheless, the organizers had assembled a magnificent ensem- ble to fill the massive hall, by some accounts an orchestra of 146 musicians, 11 additional brass players placed in the auditorium, eight vocal soloists, and 850 choristers (500 adults and 350 children)—a total of 1,015 performers! –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan MARIN ALSOP, conductor The first-ever “music curator” at Ravinia, Marin Alsop is overseeing the festival’s multi-year celebration of Leonard Bernstein, this sum- mer including three concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ravinia’s first staging of Trouble in Tahiti . She began her profession- al education at The Juilliard School, where she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and Yale University, which awarded her an hon- orary doctorate in 2017; her career was launched in 1989 when she became the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood, where she became Ber- nstein’s first female and final protégé. She is also the only conductor to have been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal Phil- harmonic Society, and was recently appointed the director of graduate conducting at the Pea- body Institute of Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her role at Ravinia, Alsop is central to Bernstein celebrations with the London Sym- phony Orchestra, with which she has a close and long-standing relationship, and the Southbank Centre, where she is an artist-in-residence. She has been music director of the Baltimore Sym- phony Orchestra since 2007 and is tenured until 2021, having had success not only with the en- semble but also with her OrchKids youth music initiative and the BSO Academy and Rusty Mu- sicians adult program. She has also been prin- cipal conductor and music director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra since 2012, leading the ensemble on three extensive European tours to date, and will become chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra this year. In addition to regular engagements with the CSO and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop frequently conducts such Eu- ropean ensembles as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, and London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. Her extensive discog- raphy has earned multiple Gramophone Awards and includes acclaimed Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles on Naxos and further record- ings on Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical. Marin Alsop made her Ravinia and CSO debuts in 2002 and is in the midst of her sixth season appearance at the festival. Ticket for admission to the Munich premiere of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 101