Prom 11: Mahler Symphony of a Thousand - 22.07.18

[edashtav]

I find the 8th to be Mahler’s least impressive symphony. All the others use their forces with control and discretion. This elephantine work sprawls and its details become blurred in a welter of notes and sonorities. I made an effort to listen this evening but switched off beaten and exhausted about halfway through. I have heard worse performances but the good aspects of this one didn’t add together and become a coherent and structured experience.

[LMcD]

Well I happened to switch on just as the final bars were playing, and did start kicking myself - I thought I was going to be away this weekend, but when plans changed I failed to check what was on. Would have loved to cycle over for a Mahler 8 and cycle home with it still light outside...

Then again... with this piece, one's so much a hostage to the singers and I feel increasingly less like taking the risk these days. Cockney Sparrow seems to suggest the gamble would have paid off in this instance... Anastasius less so (but we know singers can sound fine in the hall but rank at the other end of the microphone/broadcast process).

On balance I'm kicking myself again. Whether I'll do so after 'catching up' on iPlayer, time will tell

Just out of interest...would you cycle to the ROH for Wagner's 'Ring'?

[Anastasius]

With a recommendation as strong as that, I must give the iPlayer offering a listen.

Sarcasm - lowest form of wit.

[cloughie]

Just out of interest...would you cycle to the ROH for Wagner's 'Ring'?

No he’d probably Walkower!

[kernelbogey]

I had a miixed experience in the Hall, from a Grand Tier box on the left hand side. I found that I didn't know the work as well as I thought I did, and that detracted from the experience. From my angle, the soloists were not always clearly audible, especially in the ensembles. My enjoyment and concentration were also affected by a young woman sittiing next to me repeatedly texting throughout the performance or ostentatiously fanning herself. I shall listen on catchup as I suspect the recording may re-balance what was marred for me. I have to agree, also, with Edashtav's evaluation of the work - perhaps a good reason why I find I don't know it that well, despite my admiration for Mahler. The 2nd seems a more considerable (choral) work.

Edit: On reflection, this may be too negative a report: the choral passages were magnificent, notaby in the coda.

[Bryn]

Sarcasm - lowest form of wit.

As in "Listening at this end of the airwaves I think we must have been listening to two different concerts".

As it happens, when I did try listening to the performance via the iPlayer, I gave up after a few minutes. Perhaps they got their communal act together later in the symphony but what I heard was just too scrappy in ensemble to encourage me to persue the audition. I may return to it later, but doubt it.

[Nick Armstrong]

Just out of interest...would you cycle to the ROH for Wagner's 'Ring'?

Indeed, it's an easy ride (ask any of the Valkyries)

(Cloughie, just got your Walküre reference...)

[BBMmk2]

Indeed, it's an easy ride (ask any of the Valkyries)

(Cloughie, just got your Walküre reference...)

Or a short ride on a fast machine?

Certainly not a bad performance. Although I thought the tenor could’ve been better. Felt strained.

[Bryn]

Or a short ride on a fast machine?

Certainly not a bad performance. Although I thought the tenor could’ve been better. Felt strained.

Imagin what the usually magnificent Alberto Remedios (with his heavy cold, as mentioned earlier) sounded like in that role in the 1975 Boulez Prom. I have come to expect a level of strain in that part.

[BBMmk2]

Imagin what the usually magnificent Alberto Remedios (with his heavy cold, as mentioned earlier) sounded like in that role in the 1975 Boulez Prom. I have come to expect a level of strain in that part.

I know what it’s like playing a brass instrument with a cold!

[Bryn]

Well, following a reasonable night's sleep, I am giving the BBCNOW/Søndergård another go. I again find the orchestral contribution lacking in ensemble and, indeed, rather flaccid, much of the time, and wow(!), that tenor. Towards the end, he sounds like he had addopted the role of Mackie Messer. Some fine choral contributions, I thought, but over all, could have done with more rehearsal. No complaints about the Voice of Jupiter's balance. It should blast out like that, surely?

[bluestateprommer]

Finally caught up with this Prom at home on computer speakers (rather than at work via earbuds). On balance, while certainly not the most polished reading or the most smoothly executed reading, l lean more to the Cockney Sparrow evaluation compared to the Anastasius evaluation. From reading some comments, I half-expected an insensitive slam at top speed through the work, but TS' reading was no such thing. Some parts in Part I were taken at a fair lick compared to past readings that I recall, from iPlayer and commercial recordings, not to mention hazy memories of the two times I've heard the work live (which will probably be the only two), but nothing that the choruses and orchestra couldn't keep up with. Or in other words, as I recall reading once where Anton Webern conducted Mahler 8, he had taken "a true allegro impetuoso" at the outset.

It is understandable to have mixed feelings about Mahler 8 as a composition, as it is Mahler in public mode, where, to mash up other American commenters in the past on the work here, one can postulate that:
* Part I was the Mass that Mahler never wrote.
* Part II was the opera that Mahler never wrote.
One other opinion regarding Mahler, though not specifically about Mahler 8, comes from Bernard Haitink, where I remember him once saying to this effect:

"I don't really believe in Mahler when he's being jovial."

Since for obvious logistical and financial reasons, Mahler 8 is rarely done, one should always take the opportunity to hear it live, should an opportunity present itself in your neighborhood. It's great that several Forumites availed themselves of this opportunity.