Gustav Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 8 & 10 (Disc 1, Part I - Hymnus "Veni, creator spiritus")  (57:51)
	01	Symphony No. 10 Andante - Adagio						32:48
	02	Veni creator spiritus						01:21
	03	Imple superna gratia						03:58
	04	Infirma nostri corporis						02:42
	05	Tempo I						01:28
	06	Infirma nostri corporis						03:16
	07	Accende lumen sensibus						04:56
	08	Veni creator spiritus						03:52
	09	Gloria sit Patri Domino						03:30
Gustav Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 8 & 10 (Disc 2, Part II - Final Scene from Goethe's Faust)  (57:57)
	01	Poco adagio						05:48
	02	Piu mosso (Allegro moderato)						03:34
	03	Chor und Echo "Waldung, sie schwankt heran"						04:06
	04	Pater ecstaticus: "Ewiger Wonnebrand"						01:28
	05	Pater profundus: "Wie Felsenabgrund"						04:49
	06	Chor der Engel/Chor seliger Knaben						00:53
	07	Chor der Jungeren Engel: "Jene Rosen aus den						01:43
	08	Der vollendeteren Engel: "Uns bleibt ein"						02:24
	09	Die jungeren Engel: "Ich spur soeben"						01:09
	10	Doctor Marianus "Hochste Herrscherin der Welt						05:07
	11	Chor I/II: "Dir, der Unberuhrbaren"						03:28
	12	Magna Peccatrix: "Bei der Liebe, die den.."						04:20
	13	Una poenitentium: "Neige, neige, du.."						00:58
	14	Selige Knaben: "Er uberwachst uns schon"						03:46
	15	Mater gloriosa: "Komm! hebe dich zu hohren.."						08:03
	16	Chorus mysticus: "Alles Vergangliche ist nur"						06:21

Gustav Mahler
Country Austria
Birth Jul 7, 1860 in Kalischt, Czechoslovakia
Death May 18, 1911 in Vienna, Austria
Period Romantic
Composition
Types All Works (35)
Vocal Music (13)
Symphony (12)
Orchestral Music (3)
Choral Music (1)
Chamber Music (1)

Credits All Credits (51)
Text (21)
Lyricist (9)
Liner Notes (4)
Arranger (4)

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Biography
"Imagine the universe beginning to sing and resound," Mahler wrote of his Symphony No. 8, the "Symphony of a Thousand." "It is no longer human voices; it is planets and suns revolving." Mahler was late Romantic music's ultimate big thinker. In his lifetime he was generally regarded as a conductor who composed on the side, producing huge, bizarre symphonies accepted only by a cult following.
Born in 1860, in Kalischt, Bohemia, he came from a poor and troubled family plagued by alcoholism, abuse, insanity, and premature infant death. He entered the Vienna Conservatory in 1875, studying harmony and composition. Mahler's conducting career advanced rapidly, and in 1897 he became music director of the Vienna Court Opera and then, a year later, of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Mahler's compositional career began in 1880 with the secular oratorio Das klagende Lied, a grim murder tale of striking power and breadth for a composition by a 20-year-old. He completed his first symphony in 1888, but it met with utter audience incomprehension. Mahler's conducting career permitted composition only during the summers, in a series of "composing huts" he had built in picturesque rural locations. He reserved this time for symphonies, all of them large-scale works, and song cycles. In Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), he merged the two forms into an immense song-symphony.

The Viennese public largely failed to understand his music, but Mahler took their reactions calmly, accurately predicting that "My time will yet come." Meanwhile, his autocratic ways as a conductor alienated musicians. In 1901 they forced his resignation from the Philharmonic. By 1907 a press campaign against him and increasing antagonism forced his resignation from the opera as well. In 1902 he married a young composition student, Alma Schindler, but demanded that she give up composition. Later, on studying her songs, he reversed himself and saw to their publication.

In 1907 he became principal conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera and, in 1909, of the New York Philharmonic. Here too he ran into trouble, and resigned from the Opera in 1911. That year, he contracted tonsillitis. An operation was successful, but the bacteria invaded his bloodstream, lodging in a scarred heart valve. He was returned to Vienna, but died soon after his arrival on May 18, 1911.

The conductors Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, and Maurice Abravanel kept Mahler's legacy alive, but the one who really put him back on the map was Leonard Bernstein, whose flamboyant personality matched Mahler's so well. Mahler's are now among the most recorded of symphonies, although a whiff of the old critical disdain may be perceived in the writings of former New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg. "Mahler's struggles are those of a psychic weakling, a complaining adolescent who whimpered or blustered or grew hysterical rather than put up much of a fight," Schonberg wrote.

But for the composers of the twentieth century, Mahler's influence was decisive. His nine symphonies, huge tapestries of shifting moods and tones that ranged from tragedy to bitter irony, from cafй music to evocations of the sublime, successfully portended a century in which multiplicity and discord ruled. Every composer after him studied the ways his immense orchestral forces might be broken down into hundreds of distinctive combinations, each with its own emotional shade. Of course Mahler's music had roots in the past as well; his frequent incorporation of vocal elements into symphonic writing brought to full fruition a process that had begun with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. But it is in the compositions of Mahler, as much as in those of any other composer, that the music of the twentieth century began. -- Joseph Stevenson

AMG Selected Works (click on composition types above to see complete listings):
1901 -1904 Kindertotenlieder, cycle of songs (5) for voice & piano (or orchestra) Song Cycle for Solo Voice with Piano or Orchestra
1880 -1899 Das klagende Lied, cantata for soloists, chorus, & orchestra Cantata
1908 -1909 Das Lied von der Erde, symphony for alto (or baritone), tenor, & orchestra Romantic Symphony
1892 -1896 Lieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn, songs (12) for voice & piano (or orchestra) Song Collection for Solo Voice with Piano or Orchestra
1883 -1896 Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, cycle of songs (4) for voice & piano (or orchestra) Song Cycle for Solo Voice with Piano or Orchestra
1901 -1902 Rьckert Lieder (5) for voice & piano (or orchestra) Song Collection for Solo Voice with Piano or Orchestra
1884 -1896 Symphony No. 1 in D major ("Titan") Romantic Symphony
1888 -1903 Symphony No. 2 in C minor ("Resurrection") Romantic Symphony
1893 -1906 Symphony No. 3 in D minor Romantic Symphony
1899 -1910 Symphony No. 4 in G major Romantic Symphony
1901 -1902 Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor Romantic Symphony
1903 -1906 Symphony No. 6 in A minor ("Tragic") Romantic Symphony
1904 -1905 Symphony No. 7 in E minor ("Song of the Night") Romantic Symphony
1906 Symphony No. 8 in E flat major ("Symphony of a Thousand") Romantic Symphony
1908 -1909 Symphony No. 9 in D major Romantic Symphony
1910 Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor (unfinished) Romantic Symphony


Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor (unfinished)
Composer Gustav Mahler
Genre Romantic Symphony
Composition Date 1910

Description
Mahler left a substantially complete first movement of his tenth symphony, marked Adagio and published a few years after his death. It is a meditative, tragic movement, rising to a screamingly dissonant chord pierced by a high trumpet note. Mahler died after sketching out the rest. Musicologist Deryck Cooke discovered around 1960 that the composer had written at least a melodic line from the beginning of the second movement to the end, sometimes with detailed indications of instrumentation and harmony, sometimes with less information, sometimes with nothing but the melodic line. He used this sketch to produce a "performing version" in which to Mahler's material he added, where needed, countermelodies, harmonies, and orchestration. Later Cooke redid his completion, using a larger orchestra. The interior of the symphony comprises two scherzos divided by a movement called "Purgatorio," based on the accompaniment to one of his early Wunderhorn songs. The first scherzo is grotesque, the second more dramatic, with a great deal of good humor. The fourth movement ends with a muffled bass drum stroke, an effect Mahler observed at a New York City fireman's funeral procession. The final movement is a struggle movement, faster in tempo, not yielding easy answers, and reprising the screaming chord of the first movement. Is this completed version valid? Many conductors, including arch-Mahlerite Leonard Bernstein, did not think so. This writer accepts it as fascinating listening which is never less than at least a good imitation of Mahler, and frequently coming close to the genuine article. -- Joseph Stevenson





Symphony No. 8 in E flat major ("Symphony of a Thousand")
Composer Gustav Mahler
Genre Romantic Symphony
Composition Date 1906

Description
Gustav Mahler completed his Symphony No. 8 in E flat, "Symphony of a Thousand," in 1906. The name "Symphony of a Thousand" was not the composer's idea but an impresario's. It was written for the largest ensemble yet conceived, consisting of three sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, baritone, bass, double choir, boys' choir, orchestra, and organ. The work's premiere took place on September 12, 1910 at the Exposition Concert Hall in Munich. Mahler conducted a cast totaling (himself included) 1003 performers. The reviews were glowing, making the premiere easily the triumph of his artistic career. It is an incredible thing to make so many musicians work together and make any sort of sense, from both the perspective of a conductor and a composer. No one really thought this sort of thing was possible before Mahler went ahead and proved it a viable act. His contributions were such that they shaped the nature of artistic courage in the modern era.
The work is under 90 minutes in duration and in two parts. The first part is a medieval Catholic hymn, Veni creator spiritus. It is the briefer of the two movements and generally praises God with robust vigor. The declaration of faith is of course clear and implicit. It is also constantly choral in delivery and amazingly clear, with no polyphonic jams to speak of. The second part of the symphony is a setting of the final movement from Goethe's Faust. This part is more of a secular cantata, featuring the soloists more prominently. Its first section is an adagio followed by a scherzo, and then a finale. Other than the almost nocturnal opening of the second part, there is little music in this work that is mysterious; it is mostly very direct and never murky. In the manner of Goethe, the second part is openly romantic, somewhat pastoral, and clearly Germanic. Mahler rarely lets the texture thin out much, and manages to keep the variety of soundscape and the interest of the listener consistent. At the end of the twentieth century, it was not unusual to attend live performances of this piece, in spite of the enormity of the cost to stage such a work. Some writers contend that it was the great choral document of the twentieth century, just as Beethoven's 9th Symphony is the choral document of the nineteenth century. This is not actually the case, insofar as the musical language of Symphony of a Thousand is still firmly entrenched in late nineteenth century tonality. It is however a great work. The amount of ideas that Mahler can process simultaneously is astounding. It is the combination of certainty and wonder that makes this work succeed. -- John Keillor

Albums with Complete Performances of this Work