Mahler: Symphony No.8 (London Symphony Orchestra/Gergiev) SACD [Hybrid SACD]

I went to this concert last year at St Paul's, and was sat quite far back. Unfortunately the sound in the Cathedral was a bit of a mush in the fast loud passages. That said, some of the intricate bits and quieter passages took on a sort of 'ethereal' quality that I have not experienced in concert before, and the final passages of both Part I and Part II were spine-tinglingly staggering - feeling the St Paul's organ's 32' stops underpinning the orchestra was an experience I'll never forget.

How pleased I was, therefore, to listen to this recording and find that the 'mush' I experienced on the night has been replaced by considerable clarity. Congratulations to a splendid job by the engineers. They achieve clarity, but still manage to retain the effect of being in the Cathedral, with it's massive echo.

With regard to Gergiev's interpretation, it is marginally faster than the more stately & operatic Solti recording, but it is, on the whole, no worse for it. At a few points I felt myself wanting more of a rallentando into a new passage, where Gergiev drives straight through without much pause, but in some places, I feel it benefits the work. His reading of the opening of Part II is right 'on the money', and he is rewarded by some outstanding playing from the woodwind and brass Principals - these passages hold some of the most challenging tuning issues in the orchestral repertoire (very exposed, wide intervals), yet the players excel themselves.

The soloists - most perform very well on this (the sopranos top Cs are happily full and present), and I must make special mention of Sergey Semishkur who's performance of Doctor Marianus is excellent. I should note, however, that on occasion, the pronunciation of the German by the Russian soloists is a little laboured.

The full orchestra and chorus passages are exilerating - there are perhaps one or two places where I felt it could have taken a little more from the choruses, but overall the singing is excellent. The children's chorus is one of the best I have heard - clarity of tone and great diction - they really spit the words out!

The best way to appreciate this recording is on SACD surround sound, with the volume turned up high. It will not fail to make your spine tingle with excitement. Although at the end I would have liked to have heard a little more from the off-stage brass, you can certainly hear the placing of the players in the 'surround sound' layer. The last section with the chorus until the end of the work (with the orchestral 'postlude') is simply unsurpassed on record, and the final chord with the 10-second echo, is simply staggering.

I can't really recommend this enough - for the price it's at, it's rude not to indulge yourself. I now play it more than the Solti recording, which is saying a lot!

I approached this disc with some trepidation, but curiosity, and my obsession with owning every recording of the Eighth ever made, got the better of me. I heard Gergiev conduct Mahler VIII in Amsterdam a few years ago, a performance that through a combination of under-rehearsal, esoteric conducting and a last-minute tenor replacement skirted along the brink of disaster. His Mahler efforts in London, as far as I've heard them (numbers 2, 6 and 7), I also found distinctly underwhelming. And while St. Paul's no doubt makes for a spectacular setting, it is pretty obvious that acoustically it will pose severe problems for recording technicians.

Fortunately I found my hesitations only partly justified, though I am still baffled by all the exorbitant praise heaped on this recording. Haven't people listened to great recordings of this work such as Rattle, Tennstedt or Sinopoli gave us, recordings that on top of their artistic merits offer the benefit of expert engineering? In comparison, Gergiev's reading suffers significantly, and while it has its redeeming features I would hardly call it a touchstone recording.

If the first movement leaves me deeply dissatisfied, I am well aware that this is entirely due to the failure of the recording technicians to meet both Mahler's excessive demands and the imponderables of this particular venue. The movement sets off with a fuzzy, underpowered organ, after which fuzzy choruses without any sense of attack start up the Veni creator. While the massed singers remain in an indistinct background, shrill close-up violins jump out at the listener. The overwhelming reverberation turns the music to mush, and given maestro Gergiev's peculiar conducting technique it is no wonder that several passages, the Infirma for one, are not together. Despite all this misery we can just make out that the cast of solo singers is in fact quite good. But the weird perspectives, the lack of dynamic expansion, the lack of detail, the thin, at times almost amateurish strings, and the general bleariness of the sound (only occasionally ruptured by unpleasantly strident trumpets) make this one of the most uninvolving Veni creators I've ever come across. Even the splendid Gloria fugue goes nowhere; the fabulous horn sequence that introduces it is barely audible, the players sound so distant as if they are out on the street; and when the polyphonic ecstasy reaches its culmination the acoustics of the venue ensure that no sense can be made of it at all.

Part II, however, fares much better. In fact, the cavernous cathedral acoustics that threw a spanner in the works in Part I now become something of a boon. First there is a very atmospheric introduction where finally we get to hear that it is actually a great orchestra that is playing. Then, when the hermits echo-chorus comes in, St. Paul's creates a nice halo of reverberation that is highly suggestive of the mountainous regions Goethe envisioned here. The effect is quite spell-binding.

The solo singers are placed in a natural perspective, and the baritone (Pater Ecstaticus) has a most pleasing voice, even though his rendering is a tad too relaxed for my taste. Incidentally, this is one of the passages where Gergiev's laudable left- right division of first and second fiddles results in some scintillating dialogue. Pater Profundus sounds rather matter-of-fact and one or two times his intonation seems a bit doubtful. However, the subsequent angelic choruses will erase any frown; the children's chorus is delightfully feisty and sings with a lovely, slightly uncultivated edge to their sound. The crucial tenor soloist is certainly up to his task, though he sounds a tad strained on top. It is a pity though that there are some weird aberrations in his German diction (Gehimniss instead of Geheimniss, and something like Mudier instead of Mutter). Gretchen too is feelingly sung, though the effect of her solo is somewhat marred when at the end of it horns and trumpets get out of sync. Mater Gloriosa floats somewhere in ethereal distances - again St. Paul's is put to good use here. And while the tenor doesn't sound particularly ecstatic at `Blicket auf', the ensuing mysterious, dissonant climax before the final chorus is most effective. The hushed chorus itself, too, is beautifully realized, and blooms into a mighty climax, with powerfully present organ - it makes one wonder why this sound has eluded the technicians in part one.

In all this Eighth is a very mixed bag that may well be of interest to those enamoured of this work, but would not make a very obvious `library' choice for those seeking just one version.

I was not fortunate enough to witness this performance in St. Pauls. But I too have experienced this monumental symphony Live. It is notoriously difficult, through a recording, to encompass the massive sonorities of the climaxes with the delicacy of the quiet moments. No recording to date has succeeded.

In this performance I only rarely felt transported and exhilarated by the occasion. The performance is unexceptionable. Sensitive, dramatic and thoughtful. But not quite as monumental as the sound stage. I was always a little disappointed at the Solti performance, feeling it a little hard - driven. This is also firmly driven, but possessed of some beautiful twenty-first century accuracy from the performers and singers.

Any performance of this labour of love is an event. I am so glad I heard Gergeiev's traversal of this symphony because he has a tremendous grasp of long term shape and line. and I would urge all Mahler-lovers to buy this at such a giveaway price.
But.
Something is missing. Perhaps it was the mystery that Horenstein brought to this in his 1959 Albert Hall performance (on the BBC archive series).

I can't say which I will play next. But if you turn this one up loud it will bring St. Pauls' acoustic into your living room. And that is a blessing. As the first reviewer of this disc mentioned, it should bring you a special frisson of existing in a space with a thousand performers.