Mahler: Symphony No. 8 'Symphony of a Thousand'

Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in E flat major, dubbed the "Symphony of a Thousand" by a promoter, was his big hit, the one that finally brought him public admiration when it was premiered a year before his death. It does not really feature a thousand performers, but the massed choirs and instrumentalists assembled by Vladimir Jurowski in this 2017 live performance number about 400, which is larger than usual. Jurowski gets remarkable clarity from the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the instrumental strands of the work's quieter passages, the ones where Mahler said he wanted the orchestra to sound like a giant guitar. He effectively manages the soloists, who have to be balanced with the brass, and Judith Howarth warms to her task in her punishing soprano part. Most compelling of all, Jurowski shapes the work into its proper (or perhaps improper) extremes, and the result is tremendous momentum in the first half and mystical transcendence in the second, both greeted with audience cheers that are fabulously enthusiastic by British standards and are righty retained on the recording. Mahler is a composer who invites conductors with strong personalities to take their chances colliding with him, but here, listeners perhaps get something like the performances Mahler conducted in 1910, the ones that won the Viennese over with its pantheistic magnificence. The LPO's sound engineering shows a bit of stress in the louder passages, but this actually works; the music should be on the edge in every way, and it is.