Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 8

One hundred years after its premiere in Munich, Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony is as technically challenging now as it ever was. That original performance featured a chorus of 850 singers with an orchestra of 171 musicians, leading to the "Symphony of a Thousand" epitaph of which the composer apparently disapproved. While the expanded orchestra is required by the score, the choral component can be sung by eight principals and a much smaller chorus. The combined choirs that came together on Saturday night as the Adelaide Festival Chorus numbered less than 500. Mahler's 8th is a two-part symphony that marries the sacred and the secular into a personal declaration of love for his wife. The music resonates with artistic anguish and spiritual yearning and its power can be truly moving. (Diana Carroll, March 2010)