Closing concert. Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony
After completing his Eighth Symphony, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) wrote to a friend that he had created “a merry gift for the nation. All of my previous symphonies were preludes to this one. My other opuses are tragic and subjective, while this one offers enormous and incomprehensible joy.” A great many musicians are needed to perform the symphony by the Austrian maestro from the age of Late Romanticism – eight soloists, a large mixed choir, a children’s choir and an unusually large symphonic orchestra. When the symphony was first learned in the autumn of 1910, producer Emil Gutmann nicknamed the symphony as The Symphony of Thousands for marketing purposes.
This associatively brilliant idea gained circulation and became the symphony’s business card. The premiere of the Eighth Symphony in September 1910 was the triumph of the composer’s career. It turned out that this was the last time that Mahler conducted an orchestra in Europe and the last time that he premiered his own symphony. Because if its scope, it is performed seldom, and that means that an opportunity to hear it is of greater importance. The opus has seldom been performed in Latvia. In June 2005, Andris Nelsons offered his version at the Latvian National Opera, while in 2008 it was performed at Arena Rīga in honour of Latvia’s 90th anniversary. Imants Resnis was the conductor that time. The symphony’s premiere in Latvia was in June 1993, when Paul Meggi offered his interpretation of it at the Dzintari Concert Hall. That is where the grand opus will be performed on June 17, at the conclusion of the Rīga Festival. Olari Elts will conduct an ensemble that will include sopranos Liene Kinča, Alisa Zinovjeva and Kristīne Gailīte, mezzos Tuija Knihtilä and Olesya Petrov, tenor Juhan Trall, baritone Egīls Siliņš, bass Priit Volmer, the Latvian Radio Choir, the National Academic Choir Latvija, the Rīga Dome Cathedral Boys’ Choir and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.
Participants
Liene Kinča, soprano
Alisa Zinovejva, soprano
Kristīne Gailīte, soprano
Oļjesa Petrova, mezzo
Tuija Knihtila, mezzo
Juhan Trall, tenor
Egils Siliņš, bass baritone
Priit Volmer bass
The Latvian Radio Choir
The Rīga Dome Cathedral Boys Choir
The State Choir “Latvija”
The Latvian National Symphony Orchestra
Olari Elts, conductor