COMPOSERS: Mahler
LABELS: Harmonia Mundi
ALBUM TITLE: Mahler Symphony No. 8
WORKS: Symphony No. 8
PERFORMER: Sylvia Greenberg, Lynne Dawson, Sally Matthews, Sophie Kloch, Elena Manistina, Robert Gambill, Detlef Roth, Jan Henndrik Rootering, Berlin Radio Chorus, Leipzig MDR Radio Chorus, Windsbach Children's Choir, German Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano
CATALOGUE NO: HMC 90185859
Kent Nagano, the back-cover blurb
declares, takes us away from the
concept of Mahler’s Eighth as a
gargantuan symphony of a thousandstrong
personnel and reveals instead
a ‘thousand teeming details’. This is true, certainly of the opening ‘Veni
creator spiritus’. The youthfulsounding,
focused but still fire-drunk
choruses manage to project the text
along with all the counterpoint,
while Mahler’s spooky interludes
between the great blazes sound truly
phantasmagorical. Of the soloists,
asked to present a unified face in this
first movement, only two stand out
– mezzo Sophie Koch, by virtue of
the irrepressible personality which
outshines all the others, and Robert
Gambill, because a Heldentenor was
never meant to scale down as part of a
team (though Ben Heppner managed
it on Chailly’s fitfully brilliant
recording for Decca).
Come the individual set pieces
on the long road to Goethe’s vision
of universal harmony in the vast
second movement, and there are some
ugly sounds from Lynne Dawson’s
Penitent and Elena Manistina’s
Maria Aegyptiaca. More worryingly,
Nagano drags both the men’s solos
and virtually grinds to a halt when
the music ought to take wing; gear
changes which were only momentarily
problematic in the first movement
cripple the heavenward journey. It’s a
pity, because Nagano starts the ‘final
scene from Faust ’ with great intensity,
while collective forces and heroic
engineering combine for sheer ecstasy
at the end. It’s certainly a better shot
than most recent contenders, avoiding
crucial pitfalls of balance; but a more
consistently vivid if unashamedly
operatic celebration with a first-class
team of soloists remains Solti’s one
great Mahler recording on Decca.
David Nice