Luogo e data di registrazione		Kongreß-Saal des Deutschen Museums, München (Germania) - giugno 1970
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Executive Producer		Wilfried Daenicke
	Artistic Supervision		Hans Weber
	Recording Engineer		Heinz Wildhagen
	Prima Edizione LP		Deutsche Grammophon - 2707 062 - (2 LP's) - durata 32' 32" & 31' 07" - (p) 1971 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon - 429 042-2 - (10 CD's - 9°) - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Note		Gustav Klimt "Salome" (Detail)

Gustav Mahler's Eighth Symphony is a work in a class of its own. It requires an uncommonly large performing apparatus - a huge orchestra and organ, together with a double mixed-voice choir, a children’s choir and eight soloists. In view of the vast forces which pack the platform this work has been called the Symphony of a Thousand, and the resources it demands are certainly more extensive than those of any of Mahler's other symphonies. It is, however, perhaps the easiest among them to understand. It poses problems, but provides the solution to them in musical terms. Mahler had good reason for describing this work as a symphony rather than, say, a cantata for soli, chorus and large orchestra. To him the concept of the symphony did not signify merely a musical form which existed as the product of a process of development spread over centuries; he saw the symphony as being, both in form and content, the medium best suited to the expression of what he had to say - universal, allembracing, and aspiring towards the cosmic. He considered the symphony an ideal meeting place for spiritual forces, and in this instance he brought together two entirely dissimilar texts - a medieval Latin hymn and a dramatic scene from the 2nd part of Goethe's “Faust’ - thus giving expression to his conviction that his music would reveal unmistakably the existence of a spiritual association of ideas between the two texts. The starting point of the composition was the Latin hymn “Veni, creator spiritus!” Mahler had shown from the Third Symphony onwards that to him the concept of spiritual life and of God was essentially one of love. Consequently the first verse of the hymn, with its appeal to the Creator Spirit, was followed by the equally impassioned plea “Infunde amorem cordibus!" (Pour love into our hearts!). This was love in Mahler's lofty sense of the word - an awakening power which governs and forms all things. This hymn was originally planned as the first movement of a symphony in which it was to be followed by two inner movements (a Scherzo and an Adagio) and by a Finale comprising a second hymn corresponding to the first, on the subject of the birth of Eros. For a long time Mahler sought a suitable text, a poem whose words corresponded to his ideas. Once he had finally found what he believed to be the answer in Goethe, he had an experience similar to that which had given rise to the Resurrection Chorale in the Second Symphony: inspiration came to him like a sudden shaft of light, and the essential structure of the work which his imagination had visualized was clear before him. In the hymn love has been invoked as the creative and awakening force; here in the mystical closing scene from “Faust” love reigns as the mediating power which progressively raises, purifies, redeems and transforms mankind. - For a real understanding of the Eighth Symphony one should not think in terms of “Faust”, but should regard its final scene as having been transplanted from the original context of the poetic drama into a different work of art, of which it now forms an organic part. The starting point of all Mahler's music was the lied. The poems in the collection “Des Knaben Wunderhorn" provided the spark which kindled his creative imagination. The experience which moved him so deeply that it determined the course of his creative work, and of his life, originated with the German folk song and Christian mysteries stylized with a childlike simplicity. Now in the Eighth Symphony, written at the height of his artistic powers and of his career, he turned back to the world of ideas from which he had originally set out. He no longer pursued the old ideas in their naive, childlike forms, but fashioned them into mature and immensely powerful musical structures - the Christian element in the hymn, and that of German folksong in association with Goethe, whose artistry in this anchorites’ scene represents a supreme level of sublimated folk poetry. The use of this lengthy scene from “Faust” necessitated the abandonment of Mahler's original four-movement plan. In actual fact, however, it did survive, although in so disguised a form as to be scarcely recognizable. The composition of the scene from “Faust” is based on a concealed three-section structure which may be regarded as an Andante, Scherzo and Finale. The hymn corresponds to the proportions and principles of a sonata form movement, with its main theme and second, lyrical theme clearly to the fore as the principal elements of the exposition. The development section and recapitulation are no less easily recognizable. If the composition of the “Faust” scene is indeed a disguised three-movement structure, the layout of the Symphony as a whole falls into two main parts, as in the Third Symphony, where a massive first part is balanced by a second part consisting of several shorter movements. On the other hand the thematic construction marks a definite change. While their family relationship to earlier themes is not to be denied, the themes of the Eighth Symphony are calmer, more direct, less nervous, less wayward and excited. Although not based on folksong, they often take on many of the characteristics of folk music. The greater part of the composition took place during the happy and productive year 1906. Mahler worked at that time in a fever of creative enthusiasm, and with the sense of obeying a higher command. The instrumentation and final preparation of the score were not, however, completed until after Mahler had left Vienna in 1907. The first performance took place in September 1910, conducted by Mahler himself in Munich. Heinrich Kralik