# Mahler's 8th is his best symphony!



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

It seems fashionable on TC to deride this work. Perhaps some feel that it is not as emotionally mature as other Mahler symphonies, or that it is simply overblown.

Nonsense. Get off your high horses. It is an absolutely brilliant piece of music and it deserves a better reputation on this site. Dramatic, visionary, spiritual, even ritualistic. Great counterpoint, luscious harmonies, amazing orchestration and vocal writing. The solos "Ewiger Wonnebrand" and "Blicket Auf" are some of the most uplifting music ever written. And that ending...






It's honestly a little hard to admit this on TC, but this is probably my favorite Mahler symphony. Maybe along with the 9th.

So I'd like those of you who also fascinated by this work to please share your thoughts in this thread! *Normally I don't mind negative reactions or comments on TC, but in this thread I kindly ask that you refrain from posting them.* There are plenty of other places to do that.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> It seems fashionable on TC to deride this work. Perhaps some feel that it is not as emotionally mature as other Mahler symphonies, or that it is simply overblown.
> 
> Nonsense. Get off your high horses. It is an absolutely brilliant piece of music and it deserves a better reputation on this site. Dramatic, visionary, spiritual, even ritualistic. Great counterpoint, luscious harmonies, amazing orchestration and vocal writing. The solos "Ewiger Wonnebrand" and "Blicket Auf" are some of the most uplifting music ever written. And that ending...


Amen, I 'll go for this one.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

The problem (for want of a better word) is that a routine performance of the 8th (if there is such a thing!) can seem to be many of the things that the detractors claim. However when given an all-out committed performance (e.g. Rattle/NYOGB) it is can be overwhelming. While I haven't had the chance to actually attend a performance of it, I did go to a movie theater simulcast of Dudamel's LAPO/Simon Bolivar performance from Caracas which was quite an experience, albeit not the same as being in the hall. 

An amusing story from Daniel Harding... As many of you may have read, he was seriously bitten by the aviation bug to the point that he got all his licenses, was hired by Air France and went through the intensive Airbus A320 type certification program, not something your average weekend aviator could conceive of. He related how, after the class was finished, his classmates went off the next day and were flying passengers around Europe whereas he went to rehearse for upcoming performances of Mahler 8th, a much bigger challenge!


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

So far I don't get that symphony-- but Mahler has been a tough nut to crack for me so in a year or two I may fall for this symphony.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Rogerx said:


> Amen, I 'll go for this one.


Same here...great recording...#8 isn't my favorite Mahler, but I do like it a lot...it's high on the list...


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## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

I've heard it 5 times, which seems nuts but Levine/CSO, Zander/BostonPhil, Nezet-Seguin/PO, and Welser-Moest/VPO twice. I would go looking for performances again. I have grown to love it. The motifs (funny, I think some rules would make that motives, which is an interesting thought) work, I don't pay attention to the German romantic (nonsensical) text much, and it is a real wail of beauty.
The make-it-or-break it for me is the tenor. The tenor solos are so gorgeous when sung properly and apparently they are out of the world difficult, because more often than not they are not sung well. Put a terrible dent in the Vienna performances I heard. Some Italian (Beruggi?) who just did not have it.
So with a tenor that works, I'd say Horenstein, Davis or Chailly with Heppner (is that right?) and best of all but a little sonically challenged, Eugene Conley with Stokowski. The Solti/Kollo is not terrible but Kollo, even when on best behaviour, always lacks some "juice". Whoever that was with Horenstein is good and Conley is just wonderful.

This is a great piece, the more I get to know it the more befuddled I am by its detractors, makes no sense. And I guess I'm a spiritual or some other kind of non-mechanical Luddite in that I wish he'd have stuck with some standard liturgical text rather than the hob-goblinish gobbledy-**** of Goethe's eternal feminine. That wears less well by the hour. This may open up a can of worms with those who still dwell in the not-so-Elysian fields of German romanticism. I'm ok with that.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Mahler's 8th is his best symphony!_

I don't know which of Mahler's symphonies is his "best" but no musicologist I have ever read has even recommended the 8th to people that want to get to know him. That is usually the First, Fourth and/or Ninth.

I think probably his Fifth symphony is the only one that doesn't have some kind of built-in problem for listeners. The First can have 4 or 5 movements; the Second comes to a natural end in the finale then goes on another 15 minutes; the Third is a symphony wrapped around a cantata; the Fourth is bucolic by Mahler standards, then launches into a child's view of heaven; the Sixth can end two different ways; the Seventh is oddly constructed with two night movements; the Eighth has some idiotic text and presents a lot of challenges to someone that either doesn't like choral music or Mahler messaging; the Ninth is better than most but can drag through the finale.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The problem with the Eighth for many Mahlerites is the unending vocal nature of the work. The audiences for opera and symphony often don't overlap, and then there are those who love oratorio and cantata. Most Mahlerites are of the orchestral-symphony audience, hence less interest in the 8th. I am one of those for whom the 8th is my least favorite Mahler work. Sure, it has its glorious moments and it needs a conductor who really believes in it and knows how to make dramatic sense. A dull run-through won't cut it. But even in the best hands, the first section(s) of the second movement can really be tedious. Not being absolute music, the lyrics are essential and a good understanding of Goethe's Faust really helps. It was a work of its time when big orchestra + choral works were quite in vogue. I don't dislike it and one of the most memorable concert experiences I ever had was a live performance of it. There are some recordings that fall flat despite moments of beauty. For me there is no version that captures the sheer joy and exultation at the end of Part I like Kubelik on DG. I know a of people like Solti but it's too much of a gimmick - the recording was put together in bits: record the orchestra here, dub in the boy's chorus there...it wasn't apparent on LP, but it's unlistenable on cd with headphones.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I think that Mahler's Eighth is to him more or less what the _Missa Solemnis_ is to Beethoven - one of the greatest achievements of it's composer, yet a piece that somehow doesn't appeal to the audiences, even to many hardcore classical music listeners. I believe that the problem lies in the style of these great works: they are too different, too unexpected, too "odd" (in a good way) compared with other major pieces by these composers.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Incorrect. 2nd or 5th are his best. 8th is boring. In fact, I find all of Mahler after his 5th symphony on the boring side.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Incorrect. In fact, I find all of Mahler after his 5th symphony on the boring side.


That would make you incorrect I fear!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Barbebleu said:


> That would make you incorrect I fear!


Correctness is in the ear of the listener.


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## julide (Jul 24, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


>


I'm with the virgin on this one.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

I think his 9th is his best symphony like by far, but the 8th may be second in competition with the 5th. The 8th has probably more flaws in the details than the 5th but the 8th has also more ambition, big gesture and greatness. More composers should take his monumental 8th and 9th symphony as example. There is too much celebrated irrelevance in other composers works compared to this.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> So I'd like those of you who also fascinated by this work to please share your thoughts in this thread! Normally I don't mind negative reactions or comments on TC, but in this thread I kindly ask that you refrain from posting them. There are plenty of other places to do that.


Well, not really *negative* -- I can find something to love in all Mahler symphonies -- but the 8th has been a hard one for me to swallow whole, so to speak. I think it might be the texts which seem to swing all over the place, from Goethe to Latin hymns. In that sense it might be Mahler's most "modernist" symphony. I do love the way Mahler handles thematic material in this one though. Maybe some day I'll come around and I'll love it as much as his ninth. It was apparently a big success at its premiere.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Most any Mahler's symphony is his best one.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Relistened to the first 1/2 of the symphony (while doing something else, no way would I just sit and listen). Definitely very impassioned, but the vocal nature is a turn off for me. It sort of strikes me the way Beethoven's Missa Solemnis does, I need to really stretch myself out to identify with it. Mahler's 2nd, 4th, 5th, and by far the 7th just naturally gets me into it.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I've heard Mahler's eighth performed live once, about 30 years ago. However, this symphony, along with the third symphony, is my least favorite. I listen to the eighth symphony infrequently, indeed, it's been several years since I have last listened. Perhaps you've inspired me to listen again sometime soon.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

mparta said:


> This is a great piece, the more I get to know it the more befuddled I am by its detractors, makes no sense. And I guess I'm a spiritual or some other kind of non-mechanical Luddite in that I wish he'd have stuck with some standard liturgical text rather than the hob-goblinish gobbledy-**** of Goethe's eternal feminine. That wears less well by the hour. This may open up a can of worms with those who still dwell in the not-so-Elysian fields of German romanticism. I'm ok with that.


More nonsense! The text is brilliant and ages well, as is/does Mahler's setting of it.

I would agree that a lot of Romanticism is "gobbledy-****" that gets old after a while, but Goethe tends to stand the test of time.

There's a good deal of irony in this piece, like in Faust. Not sardonic irony like Shostakovich, but something else, something more playful. In the end I don't think it and its message are supposed to be taken all that seriously.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

mparta said:


> This is a great piece, the more I get to know it the more befuddled I am by its detractors, makes no sense. And I guess I'm a spiritual or some other kind of non-mechanical Luddite in that I wish he'd have stuck with some standard liturgical text rather than the hob-goblinish gobbledy-**** of Goethe's eternal feminine. That wears less well by the hour. This may open up a can of worms with those who still dwell in the not-so-Elysian fields of German romanticism. I'm ok with that.





BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> More nonsense! The text is brilliant and ages well, as is/does Mahler's setting of it.
> 
> I would agree that a lot of Romanticism is "gobbledy-****" that gets old after a while, but Goethe tends to stand the test of time.
> 
> There's a good deal of irony in this piece, like in Faust. Not sardonic irony like Shostakovich, but something else, something more playful. In the end I don't think it and its message is supposed to be taken all that seriously.


I've enjoyed both these posts, and I find myself largely in agreement with both sides here! Yes, Goethe's _Faust_ is an enduring classic, but I'm not sure that it has quite the status in world literature of (e.g.) the _Iliad_ or the _Aeneid_ or the _Divine Comedy_ or _King Lear_ or _Anna Karenina_. Except perhaps in Germany, I think it tends to have a reputation for great brilliances combined with feet of clay, the doctrine of the Eternal Feminine being among the latter. Goethe may have been, as Matthew Arnold says, the "physician of the iron age," but on that particular issue I fear he was sharing the disease of his century rather than curing it.

That would bother me if Mahler's symphonies were designed to be repositories of stable wisdom handed down from the ages (like, e.g., Bruckner's). Just imagine if one of Bruckner's masses threw out half the liturgical text and replaced it with "Life is real, life is earnest..." or the Communist Manifesto, or something else quintessentially redolent of the 19th century!!! But I don't think of Mahler's symphonies like that. To me, they're more like a series of Pickett's Charges, individualistic attempts to press as far as possible in the direction of a goal that cold logic would declare unattainable. The further such a charge goes, the less securely is the attained ground securely possessed. That's how I feel about Mahler's Eighth. Except that this analogy is a very serious one, and I fully agree that the quests in Mahler have a distinct component of playfulness. He isn't really out on the battlefield at Gettysburg; to a significant extent, he's still a little boy leading a charge of toy soldiers in the nursery. Or so it seems to me.

I fell in love with the Eighth when I first heard it. I've never understood its low reputation; can't hear the alleged problems with it at all. But then I'm never troubled by choral symphonies; I think voices can achieve just as much as instruments--indeed arguably even more, because they're more human, more alive. And perhaps sometimes (though not always) a combination of words and music may be able to express things that neither words nor music could express individually.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

More people should start believing this. Too often is it maligned and slandered. Mahler himself was extremely proud of the Eighth, esteeming it above his other symphonies.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

Littlephrase said:


> More people should start believing this. Too often is it maligned and slandered. Mahler himself was extremely proud of the Eighth, esteeming it above his other symphonies.


Maybe this thread will change the world. I can see us being immortalized in future histories of music: "Nobody ever really understood Mahler's Eighth until February 2021, when a small band of brilliantly perceptive but modest visionaries on Talk Classical boldly challenged the status quo and dared to suggest that the Eighth was indeed a great work."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Littlephrase said:


> More people should start believing this. Too often is it maligned and slandered. Mahler himself was extremely proud of the Eighth, esteeming it above his other symphonies.











good to see you reusing your old avatar!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Completely agree with the OP. I was one of the 8th haters until about this time last year when it all "clicked" with me. Oddly it was while listening to the Haitink/RCO recording which few name as a favorite. It's an astonishingly good symphony. Something which people may find interesting is that it's probably Mahler's most motivic symphony. Someone once told me that every melodic development in the whole symphony derives from the very first few bars, and it's true. 

Anyway, I will admit that I have to be in the right mood to listen to the whole thing, but I won't allow any anti-8th slander in my household.


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## FLighT (Mar 7, 2013)

I've seen the 8th performed 3 times over 5 decades and when live they were much more involving than listening to recordings of that work.

For whatever reason I've never heard a recorded performance that engaged me much, and I have 4 including the Solti/Decca. 

It's not necessarily the performances but maybe more to do with recording the massive forces involved. And maybe its just as Emperor Joseph II would have said "too many voices".

I like the vocal aspects of 2,3, and 4 as well as "Das Lied". Perhaps big choral works just aren't my thing. Handel's oratorio's and Bach's major choral works never caught my attention much either.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

This book is on my to-read list =>


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