Solti's Mahler Eighth

MAHLER. Symphony No. 8 in E flat major. Heather Harper, Lucia Popp, Arleen Auger (sopranos), Yvonne Minton, Helen Watts (contraltos), René Kollo (tenor), John Shirley-Quirk (baritone), Martti Talvela (bass), Vienna State Opera Chorus, Singverein Chorus, Vienna Boys' Choir, Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti.

Decca SET534-5 (two records, nas, £5.20). Notes, text and translation included.

Bernstein (12/68) 72491-2 

Kubelik (10/71) (7/72) (R) 2707 062 

Haitink (12/71) 6700 049

Now at last Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand can be heard on record at something approaching its full, expansive stature. Here is a version from Solti which far more clearly than any previous one conveys the feeling of a great occasion. Just as a great performance, live in the concert-hall, takes off and soars from the very start, so the impact of the great opening on "Veni Creator Spiritus" tingles here with electricity. There was something of that charismatic quality in the recording of Bernstein with the LSO, but with superb atmospheric recording and a sense of space more than in rival versions, not to mention playing from the Chicago orchestra that shows up all rivals in precision of ensemble, Solti's performance sets standards beyond anything we have known before.

The task of translating such a work into living-room terms is strictly impossible of course. Some may still prefer the much more discreet approach favoured by Haitink and Kubelik and their respective engineers, though to my mind the choral and solo singing of the Haitink version seriously hinders enjoyment even making no allowance for the generally lower voltage. But Solti, characteristically, refuses to accept half measures. This is as near a live performance as the dynamic Solti can make it. At times the sheer physical impact makes one gasp for breath, and I found myself at the thunderous end of the first movement shouting out in joyous sympathy, so overwhelming is the build-up of tension. Maybe this is not a record which one will be able to cope with emotionally in frequent repetition, but to my mind it justifies Mahler's great scheme in emotional as well as intellectual terms to a degree unknown on record before, save perhaps—paradoxically—in the very imperfect, indifferently recorded live account from Flipse on Philips many years ago.

Here Solti has the best of both worlds, the illusion of a live performance coupled with glorious studio sound, and when it comes to making a choice that quality is so vital as to be conclusive. But happily Solti's interpretation is in detail extremely fine, a product of the keenest perception and sensitivity. At the very start the keynote for Solti lies in the instruction "impetuoso", yet in fact his tempo is fractionally more measured than Haitink's, the difference of impact lying in the respective tensions. Before fig. 7 Solti allows himself a very expansive ritenuto indeed, but one is grateful for that clear, early demonstration that this is a performance which compasses not only the frenzied intensity of the urgent music but the more contemplative qualities too. The high contrasts of both movements are superbly compassed with such a passage as the entry of the children's choir after fig. 63 in the second movement (Chorus of Young Angels) bringing a heart-easing resolution on innocence. Then a few pages later the cry of "Jauchzet auf" from sopranos and altos has golden echoes of the midsummer joy of the final scene of Meistersinger.

The most controversial point of Solti's interpretation will, I imagine, be his angularity at the start of the second movement. The long prelude setting the atmosphere for the final scene of "Faust" finds Solti giving an edge even to pianissimos. In his hands for all its hushed intensity this is not at all comfortable music, and after all the scene-setting is illustrating mountain gorges, forests, cliffs and desert. His approach also has the merit of relating this passage more clearly than usual with other Mahler, spare and intense in its strange orchestral colouring. Maybe the pianissimo could be even gentler, but I suspect that Solti was wanting to reserve his gentlest sound of all for the supreme moment of Innigkeit, the final entry of the chorus to a triple piano marking just after fig. 202 to the words "Alles vergangliche"— a moment of love and beauty which equally with the great choral outbursts wins me over to this version above all others.

To complete the picture I do not think there is any doubt that Solti's soloists and Viennese choral forces set new standards for this work of precision and intensity. Decca's lavishness in selecting a roster of soloists unlikely to be rivalled has paid off. There is not a weak link, and though René Kollo in the principal tenor role occasionally ignores his pianissimos he easily outstrips his rivals, with a big Heldentenor sound used intelligently. Harper and Popp both produce ecstatic sounds, subtly contrasted one with the other in creamy tone. Comparable contrasts within finely focused tone between Minton and Watts, Shirley-Quirk (in glorious voice) and Talvela. My one doubt is whether such fine singers needed balancing so far forward. My preference would have been for the choruses (the State Opera Chorus, Singverein and Vienna Boys—all superb) to be brought a little more forward, the soloists a little farther back, but as it is I prefer the Decca balance to that of rivals, which also favour the soloists for the sake of clarity. Inevitably with so massive a score one has from time to time the sense of some individual instrument being brought forward by the engineer for an important entry (the solo violin very noticeably for example) but generally the standards one associates with Decca's Sofiensaal recordings from Ring days onwards are equalled and even surpassed. It is amazing that the sound of such massive forces has been so brilliantly and vividly captured with such expansiveness on the one hand and such inner clarity on the other. I had thought that one of the merits of the Philips recording for Haitink was its clarity, but it is instructive to compare such a passage as the horn entry at fig. 37 in the first movement where the Chicago horn has far more bite and impact.

No doubt one day the achievement of this first really great recording of Mahler's Eighth will be surpassed, but in the meantime I can only urge all Mahlerians—and others too—to share the great experience which Solti and his collaborators offer. It provides a marvellous commemoration of his Decca Silver Jubilee.  EG (Edward Greenfield)