Mahler: Symphony No. 8

Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in the full cycle from Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, one of Europe’s most historically resonant orchestras with a conductor internationally recognised for his structural command and interpretive integrity. The Orchestra occupies a distinctive place within Mahler’s geographical and cultural landscape – Mahler was born and brought up in Bohemia and completed his first symphony shortly after spending a year in Prague. Mahler symphonies have been central to Bychkov’s programming with the Czech Philharmonic since 2018 when he opened his tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director with performances of Mahler Symphony No. 2

In Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in E-Flat Major (1906–07), where is the angst? Where is the heart-rending, handwringing self-flagellation? Here Mahler was hoping for something different:

“Can you imagine a symphony that is sung throughout, from beginning to end? So far, I have employed words and the human voice merely to suggest, to sum up, to establish a mood. […] But here the voice is also an instrument. The whole of the first movement is strictly symphonic in form, yet it is completely sung.”

The first part stands as the purest music Mahler ever wrote, a clear-cut ‘sonata form’ representing the symphonic ideal. Consequently, the work’s second half is a journey back to that purity, a rhapsodic struggle through darkness, ‘to touch rock bottom’, as in the First Symphony, before reaching Goethe’s heaven.

That numinous conclusion would, alas, be elusive for Mahler. Instead of regaining paradise, he found himself back in the hellish world of his Sixth Symphony during the summer of 1907. It was the year his eldest daughter died, when he was also diagnosed with an ultimately fatal heart condition and decided to resign from the Court Opera in Vienna. Such was the backdrop to the hiatus in Mahler’s symphonic life from 1906 to 1909. While he had previously been able to maintain staggering levels of creativity, moving almost immediately from one symphony to the next, 1907 changed everything.

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov – conductor