Mahler’s Symphony of A Thousand

After the fallout from the previous symphony number 7, Mahler brings things back to top form in Symphony Number 8, or the Symphony of A Thousand. It includes 400 children and 600 adults in the choir. It is a beautiful soundscape of voices and done in a Mahler fashion of always doing things in a huge way. Sometimes the solos are a bit over the top, but the culminating orchestration is fabulously supporting it. It is one of those symphonies that would make other composers today long for the days when the symphony orchestra was wholly supported. This symphony, by and large, is about Mahler’s fear of failing spirits, confronting the thoughts of death and fractured afterlife. He sought to combine, oratorio, dramatic cantata, orchestral song, opera and passion all under one symphony as future movements would prove. It is indeed the more colossal work, as his works of late would be more and more dramatically done.

This is truly a mixed bag of types. It is serious and it is beautiful. This is probably the mindset behind Mahler’s composing—unrelaxed equals beautiful and yet restrained. Passion shows itself in many different ways with many different people. With Mahler, it was a serious effort that concealed a wide variety of emotions.