Over the weekend, the Nashville Symphony performed Gustav Mahler’s epic Eighth Symphony and heralded in the end of an era. Known as the “Symphony of a Thousand” and scored for multiple choirs, a huge orchestra, and no fewer than eight soloists, Mahler’s 8^th is one of the grandest works in the repertoire. As such, it is also an appropriate farewell to Maestro Guerrero who is bringing his 16-year tenure as the symphony’s music director to a close. He was a director who was excellent at achieving the most beautiful articulation of the broad romantic line in a work, and as the public face of the orchestra, he had a remarkable ability to create marvelous symphonic moments at the Schermerhorn, whether they be premieres of works by living American composers, or performances of the oldest chestnuts our culture has to offer. It was a wonderful concert and it laid plain the challenge that the search committee faces in seeking someone to replace him.

Mahler’s 8^th Symphony was composed at the apex of his life, and indeed, at the time he saw it as culminating his compositional work to that point. He composed it while still married to Alma, while his daughter was alive, while he was himself, healthy, and although he faced horrible antisemitism in Vienna, his compositional and conducting career was blossoming. In the summer of 1906, as he composed, apart from a short span of fear from a writer’s block, he worked in haste and inspiration. In that summer, while on a break at the Mozart Festival in Salzburg, he allegedly told Richard Specht (music historian and friend) “…in the last three weeks I have completed the sketches of an entirely new symphony, something in comparison with which all the rest of my works are no more than introductions. I have never written anything like it; […] it is certainly the biggest thing that I have ever done.” Whether it is larger or more important than his 9^th symphony, or Das Lied von Erde, is up to debate, but he is said to have called the 8^th his most important as late as the summer of 1910, when the other works had been either written or conceived. Perhaps his most optimistic work, he had no way of predicting the tragedies that would later befall him.

The work itself is built on a frame of a sacred and then a secular religious work. The first being the hymn Veni creator spiritus, and the second a setting of Goethe’s famous final scene from Faust, depicting the redemption of the hero through das Ewige-Weibliche or the eternal feminine and their ascension. It is Mahler at his most optimistic and the music is spiritually beautiful, direct and sincere, lacking the irony and dark perception of the world that would mark his later works. In Nashville, another part of the Specht quote came to mind. Mahler described his intention with the Faust scene, and the entire symphony as “…to set it quite differently from other composers who have made it saccharine and feeble.” The power strength and vitality of the work was as powerful at the first chord as it was at the last, and in the Schermerhorn, the power was tangible.

Mary & Tucker Biddlecombe’s chorus was, again, exquisitely prepared. They competed admirably well with Mahler’s huge brass section, which in Nashville can be, if I am being honest, a little too loud for Laura Turner Hall. However, the clarity of diction and even, full sound, even in pianissimo, was remarkable. The soloists too, were excellent. In particular, Maria Aegyptiaca, sung I believe by alto Renée Tatum high in a balcony offstage, was incredible. We last heard Tatum here with Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and hope that she will find her way through BNA soon!

Personally, I am a little too angsty for Mahler’s 8^th, I much prefer darkness overall in my Mahler (the 9^th is my “jam”). That said, the highlight of the evening was the ever-ascending spiritual crescendo at the famous “das Ewige-Weibliche.”  It was a remarkable performance that gave me the chills. One hopes that, like it was in Mahler’s life, the Eighth won’t be the apex for either the orchestra or the departing Maestro’s history—that this is just another step in a long, progressive journey of, and towards, ever greater excellence for each. Either way, it was a memorable evening, capping off yet another wonderful season! Thanks Maestro Guerrero, may the road rise to meet you!

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Joseph Morgan

Joseph E. Morgan is a father of two, husband, teacher and recovering guitarist in Middle Tennessee.

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