Intimacy lacking in Mahler's behemoth

MUSIC: Graha= m Strahle
From: The Australian
March 15, 20= 10 12:00AM
<= span style=3D'font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";mso-farea= st-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>Mahler: Symp= hony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Adelaide Festival Chorus. Conductor: Arvo Volmer.
Adelaide Entertainment Centre. March 13.

SIZE does matter when it comes to Mahler's only fully choral symphony, b= ut not necessarily volume. The power of his Symphony No. 8, nicknamed Symphony= of a Thousand, lies paradoxically as much in its intimacy as its stupendous forces.

Its texts are spiritual and poetic in nature, and in its underlying mes= sage of the redemptive power of love, it should sound more like a cantata than an opera.

The Adelaide performance of this work, coming just 23 days after the Sydney Symphony's in February, assembled a larger number of musicians.

On stage were 130 players from the Adelaide and Tasmanian symphony orchestr= as, and 378 choristers gathered from a dozen local Adelaide and interstate choi= rs.

But to begin with, it was a most distressing experience.

The uplifting medieval Pentecostal hymn that opens the work, Veni, Creator Spiritus, c= ame as a giant wall of sound dominated by electronic organ and an over-implemented, dreadful-sounding amplification system that had been installed to cope with= the large, cavernous interior of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

Appropriate as this venue is for pop concerts, it should simply not be used= for symphony performances because of its lack of natural acoustics.

The problem is that Adelaide has no other venue to stage a work of this siz= e, certainly none with a real pipe organ.

Part II of the symphony, much of it quietly reflective, revealed that condu= ctor Arvo Volmer knew ex= actly what he was doing. His grip on tempo was unerring and his pacing of dynamics outstanding.

At low volume, when the amplification was not kicking in, the choir and orchestra sounded beautifully hushed and ethereal. There was Viennese sweet= ness to the sopranos in the angelic song Jene Rosen,= aus den Handen, and the children's chorus was accurately in time, belying the difficulties of co-ordinating such large, disparate forces.

Whereas in Part I the soloists were over-singing and pushing their voices t= oo hard, in Part II they had settled. Mezzosoprano= Ning Liang and soprano Sara Macl= iver excelled for composure and purity of voice.

Tenor Warren Mok's ecstatic veneration of the V= irgin Mary as Doctor Marianus was too forceful and op= eratic in quality, but baritone Jared Holt was marvellous in expression and diction as Pater Ecstaticus.

Bass Joshua Bloom added an attractive dark, shaded quality as Pater Profundus.