A Century of "The Symphony of a Thousand" aka Nate is a Nerd

You don't have to watch this, but just click on it and listen as you read...

One of my favorite composers is the Austrian Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Mahler was known in his day mainly as a conductor, but he also wrote nine symphonies and several orchestral song cycles.

Throughout his life, when he premiered a symphony of his, the reception was usually very poor. Even the symphonies that were somewhat well received, were not enough for people to place Mahler in the pantheon of great composers. Yet he continued to write.

With his Eighth Symphony, Mahler created something totally different and unique to what he had done before. The work would be based on two very different texts, one an ancient latin Christian hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, and the other a German poem from Faust by Goethe. Both texts shared a message of redemption through the power of love and confidence in the eternal human spirit.

The performance forces required were huge: an enlarged orchestra (with organs, pianos, glockenspiels, mandolins, and other odd instruments), a choir, a boys choir, and four soloists. The producer of the premier performance billed it as the "Symphony of a Thousand," due to these large numbers, and though Mahler disapproved of this title, the name stuck.

It was exactly 100 years ago today, September 12th, at the Neue Fest-Halle in Munich that the work premiered. This former music hall was damaged in World War II and is today the site of a Transportation Museum. It is only a half a mile from my church and so I decided to leave a bit earlier for church today and visit the site.

There was an auto show going on outside and a bit of construction...

Inside you could see old trains, helicopters and carriages from the museum. At the premiere of Mahler's 8th, many of the who's who of turn-of-the-century musicians and composers were there including Camille Saint-Saëns, Richard Strauss, Anton Webern, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski...

Here is a photo of one of the rehearsals at the Neue Fest-Halle...

And here is a similar view from today....

As the finale reached its conclusion and the music stopped, there was a short pause and then the entire hall burst into tremendous applause that lasted for over 20 minutes. The 8th was a complete success! Nine months after his triumph in Munich, Mahler died at the age of 50.

Though his music went through a few decades of neglect after his death, prominent conductors like Leonard Bernstein and even Maurice Abravanel did much to bring his works into the spotlight. Today, Mahler is one of the most often programmed and popular composers of the last 150 years.

I first became familiar with Mahler's 8th after buying the CD in Hungary while on my mission. Not long after I got home I was talking with Craig Jessop, former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and a friend of my dad's. I jokingly asked him when they were going to perform Mahler's 8th whereupon he pulled out two tickets and said, in just a few weeks here you go! It was a great experience to hear it live.

It was also fun today to go and see where it all started exactly 100 years ago to the day...

I told you I was a nerd.

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