"Imagine that the universe bursts into song. We hear no longer human voices but those of planets and suns which revolve," the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) wrote in a letter to the Dutch conductor Josef Willem Mengelberg when he scored his Eighth Symphony in 1906.
Nearly 96 years after the great composer outlined his idea, a spectacular scene lit up the Poly Theatre in Beijing, when the marvelous symphonic piece was performed to raise the curtain on the fifth Beijing Music Festival on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Under the baton of Yu Long, the festival's artistic director, more than 1,000 performers -- including three orchestras, eight choirs and eight soloists from both China and abroad -- thrilled the weekend crowd, delivering a superb musical treat that was true to the original production.
The symphony's legendary Munich premier did not take place until 1910 but it was the greatest triumph of Mahler's life.
Its debut in China at the weekend proved to be a historic music event in this country. Audiences on both nights gave thunderous applause after each of the two movements.
The cheers and ovations went on for more than 20 minutes after the performances, with members of the audience then spilling from the theatre exhausted and exhilarated, shaken and stirred.
In the summer of 1906, Mahler was troubled by thoughts of failing powers.
He took a holiday to rest. On the first day, he was inspired while walking down to his composing hut. "On the threshold of my old workshop, the Spiritous Creator took hold of me and shook me and drove me on for the next eight weeks until my greatest work was done." This was the Eighth Symphony.
Though the ideas must have been germinating for longer, the actual composition took him about six weeks.
The Eighth is based on a statement of Mahler's personal aspirations: a belief in the ability of the inspired spirit to lift humankind to the highest plain of achievement through love in all its aspects and embodied specifically in the Eternal Feminine, which, for Mahler, meant his wife Alma, to whom the work is dedicated.
The symphony is scored for a huge orchestra (including quadruple winds with eight horns, as well as mandolin and harmonium), off-stage brass of four trumpets and three trombones, eight soloists, a double choir of adults, a boys' choir and a concert organ.
Divided into two movements, the work comes close to being two different symphonies that are very diverse in terms of musical content. The first movement is a tight symphonic setting of the Latin hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus and the second movement a more rhapsodic version of the closing scene of Part 2 of Goethe's Faust.
These two texts fuse religion and humanism together, with Faust symbolizing mankind redeemed from wrongdoing through Love.
Mahler conducted the 1,029 performers himself in 1910 and said the symphony was "the greatest thing I have ever made." Hence the sobriquet Symphony of a Thousand given to the work by Emil Gutmann, the impresario responsible for the premiere.
"Performing Mahler's Eighth Symphony is a sophisticated project," said Yu. "It needs talented soloists, a mature and huge orchestra and chorus, as well as enough funds."
Chinese audiences and even some foreign Mahler fans who flew in from abroad were given a treat after organizers of the annual festival decided to offer a "real" Symphony of a Thousand as the grand opening concert of the fifth Beijing Music Festival.
The Beijing debut of the symphonic work has become another legend.
Rao Lan, a Chinese soprano whose singing has earned her a reputation abroad, said: "Many of my foreign friends could not believe that we would perform the work in China when I told them the news. It is a great challenge to all the members.''
In the two concerts, eight distinguished international soloists were joined by eight choirs, including a children's chorus from Beijing Zhongguancun No 3 Primary School.
Their glorious singing was beautifully complemented by the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, playing with dedication and enthusiasm.
Conducting the piece for the first time, Yu Long handled the awesome task of marshalling the huge resources that the work requires with consummate skill, inspiring his performers to rise to the heights demanded by Mahler's monumental score.
In the first part, Mahler begins by invoking -- in the sense of conjuring up -- the creative spirit. This command is masculine and forceful, and Yu conducted this first movement with gusto and magnetic force.
He judged the dynamics and tempo of this movement to perfection.
Of particular note were the timpanist's vigorous, firm playing and the well-disciplined brass, who played poetically rather than sensationally from the top floor of the auditorium.
Yu ended this movement as he began it, with a sheer elation that prompted the satisfied fans to applaud and shout.
The second part goes from the sensational to the sublime. It deals with the feminine, ethereal sound-world and with redemption and forgiveness. Here, Yu drew out the exquisite lyricism and hope implicit in the score, and the sweet string passages were divinely played by the orchestra.
The harps and woodwind played with a combination of precision and poetry that is rarely heard.
The soloists were all in good voice, and worthy of note were Chinese soprano Rao Lan and the young Dutch tenor Frank van Aken, whose arias was very movingly sung.
Japanese soprano Akie Amou sang Mater Gloriosa from the third floor of the auditorium like sound from the sky. Germany's Karsten Mewes as Pater Ecstaticus and Poland's Marek Gasztecki as Pater Profundus all sang their roles superbly.
However, it was the massed choirs who really made the greatest impact on the two evenings. The male chorus members produced a hushed, fragmented, almost ghostly sound at the beginning of the second part, while the children's chorus towards the end produced divinely spirited singing as the Blessed Boys.
Yu mustered all these forces for the massive climactic ending, which created a sense of intoxicating fulfillment, sending the capacity audience into a frenzied ovation.
Renowned Chinese conductor Bian Zushan said: "the orchestra was inspired and the choirs sang their hearts out. It's a very difficult and commanding symphonic work and I never expected it would be performed so well in China."
(China Daily October 14, 2002)
