Valedictory recording of Mahler's Eighth hits technical and artistic heights

Osmo Vänskä will finish his career as a guest conductor 

 Long ago I was excited by my first exposure to Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand" (No. 8 in E-flat major) through Georg Solti's 1971 recording, which I own on open-reel tape.

 Troubles with my tape player have sidelined that recording for years, but it paved the way for my first concert experience of the work a couple of decades ago at the Cincinnati May Festival, led by James Conlon. The impact was mighty, but the thickest musical textures were too massive, almost clotted, to appreciate fully.

 My experience with a CD version came first with the Chandos recording Leif Segerstam conducted with Danish choral and orchestral forces. It was evident, despite some excellent interpretive decisions, that properly balancing the many performers carries inherent difficulties over to recording if the artistic and technological sides of the project aren't kept clear and distinctive.

 My first impression hearing the Minnesota Orchestra and regional choruses, plus excellent soloists, was that what Osmo Vänskä leads here is one of the landmark achievements in recording huge forces and following the extraordinary range of dynamics the composer specifies. The only basis for favorable comparison I have is Colin Davis' version (BMG Classics) with German forces. Even that triumphant account doesn't deliver as well in recording as what the BIS Records team have achieved in Minnesota as recorded in June 2022. 

The concerts marked the end of Vänskä's 19-year tenure as the Minnesota Orchestra's music director; the last release in his Mahler cycle with the orchestra will be Symphony No. 3 next spring. To get the technical specifics out of the way first, BIS recorded the Eighth as a Super Audio CD, using surround-sound technology intended to faithfully reproduce the acoustics of Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. 

 There is ample opportunity to appreciate the result in the first part of the work, the hymn "Veni, creator spiritus." I liked the headlong, but never slapdash, forward motion to Part I. A common Mahler direction, "Nicht schleppend" (don't drag), conveys the composer's warning that interpretive tempo fluctuations should never run counter to the designated tempo, even when conductors might be tempted to stress expressive points.

Vänskä has his forces on board with that kind of guidance. But what is most remarkable, both technically and expressively, is the breadth and crispness of sound in Part II, the last scene from Goethe's "Faust." The direction to the choirs at the first appearance of the lines "Alles vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis" (translated in the accompanying booklet as "All things transitory are but parable") is "Wie ein Hauch" (like a breath), a demand reinforced by the triple-"piano" marking. These singers get as close as possible to simply breathing those words. 

When the words recur at full force, with the large orchestra supporting them, the sound will set your speakers ablaze (figuratively, I trust). The mixed-children's chorus is well-trained, but the detectable masculinity of the boys' choir in Davis' performance is preferable when it comes to the treble voices holding their own.

As for the seven soloists, the Minnesota Orchestra version has hired excellence throughout. BIS engineering makes each one impressive even en masse. By a whisker, however, I prefer the intensity of the new version's Barry Banks (a tenor who will remind some favorably of James McCracken; others, not) to the famous Ben Heppner, who is certainly just as fit for the role of Doctor Marianus. That's the figure who sets up the marvelous peroration of the work. 

Orchestra and choruses sound world-class; phrasing is always full and responsive. The rapport is remarkable. The Minnesota version will have your heart doing handstands.