12 February 2019 (Tue), 21:00 World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera Theatre - Opera and Concert Hall - Stars of the Stars Concert Gustav Mahler. SYMPHONY No 8 (for eight soloists, three choruses and full symphony orchestra)
Schedule for Gustav Mahler. SYMPHONY No 8 (for eight soloists, three choruses and full symphony orchestra) 2022
Mezzo soprano: Nadezhda Serdyuk Soprano: Viktoria Yastrebova Tenor: Dmitry Voropaev Soprano: Lyudmila Dudinova Soprano: Anastasia Kalagina Baritone: Alexei Markov Conductor: Andrei Petrenko Bass: Vladimir Felyauer Mezzo soprano: Yekaterina Sergeyeva
Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko Composer: Gustav Mahler
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
Gustav Mahler. SYMPHONY No 8 for eight soloists, three
choruses and full symphony orchestra
Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is often compared and placed
alongside Beethoven’s Ninth and its culminating Ode to Joy.
The composer believed that the Eighth Symphony would become
a lofty ode to mankind, his creative spirit, an ode to beauty and to
Goethe’s “eternal femininity”. It was also conceived by Mahler as
a “symphony of symphonies”, a crowning symphonic epic which
the composer had created over two decades. In other words, the Eighth
Symphony was allotted the role of the finale of
the super-series of all of Mahler’s symphonies. The idea
demanded that the composer find huge performing resources: an enlarged
symphony orchestra, an organ, two mixed choruses, a boys’ chorus and
soloists – three sopranos, two altos, a tenor, a baritone and
a bass. Written in summer 1906, the symphony was first performed
in Munich on 12 September 1910. The premiere met with triumphant
success. With the light hand of the impresario, the Eighth
received the title “Symphony of a Thousand”, a name rejected by
Mahler himself as too much of an advertisement. But at the same time,
the composer underlined the truly universal scale of his work. In
a letter to Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, Mahler wrote: “I have just
finished my Eighth Symphony – the most magnificent of anything
I have yet written. The work is so unique in terms of content and form
that it is impossible to speak of it, even in a letter. It seems as if
the entire universe begins to sound and ring; it is not just human voices
singing, but the planets rotating and the sun…”
Iosif Raiskin
Schedule for Gustav Mahler. SYMPHONY No 8 (for eight soloists, three choruses and full symphony orchestra) 2022
|