Mahler 8 review

Mahler Symphony No 8.
Twyla Robinson, Marina Shaguch, Sara Macliver (sopranos), Dagmar Peckova, Bernadette Cullen (mezzos), Simon O'Neill (tenor), Markus Eiche (baritone), Martin Snell (bass) New Zealand Youth Choir, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Christchurch City Choir, Orpheus Choir of Wellington, Choristers of Wellington Cathedral, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Michael Fowler Centre, February 26
Reviewer: John Button

When the Mahler Eighth Symphony, with its vast forces creating as much a visual spectacle as an aural one, was performed under Markus Stenz at the 1996 International Festival of the Arts, many, myself included, thought it was something of an indulgence. But what an indulgence! And what a spectacle! And what a sound!

And now, 14 years later, a new performance rekindled the old memories but with, in certain respects, even more dazzle.

The work itself is a strange construction called a symphony but is really a choral work in two parts; parts that really have little in common. The first part is a stirring setting of a medieval catholic hymn, the second a setting of the final part of Goethe's Faust - Part 2.

But if it is an odd work, it also has page after page of gloriously ecstatic music, culminating in its final pages which, as an admirer at the first performance in 1910 suggested, ". . . reaches to Heaven itself . . ."

In one respect, that even a gap of 14 years could not obscure, it was immediately obvious that the NZSO of 2010 is a more accomplished ensemble than that of 1996, good as that was, and under Vladimir Ashkenazy's baton they played not only with razor-sharp precision, but with a range of tone colour that was consistently breathtaking.

The choral singing, too, was out of the top drawer; wonderfully rich and expansive in the climaxes and superbly controlled in the important hushed passages. The precision they showed was impressive given their numbers, and the large group of children from schools around Wellington were all Mahler could have wished for.

From my rather close seat, but one that offered a spectacularly panoramic sound, the soloists were under a microscope. Not all of them survived such scrutiny - a bit unfair, I suppose - but the finest of them were intensely visceral. Simon O'Neill might have a laser-like upper range but his singing is marvellously sure, and he was absolutely thrilling in Dr Marianus' great moments.

The audience greeted the performance with a prolonged standing ovation - completely deserved. An unforgettable aural and visual experience.