Book description
'Thrilling.' John Banville, Guardian
The Eighth Symphony was going to be different from anything Mahler had ever done before: it would speak in different tones, and of a different kind of experience. The world premiere in Munich in the summer of 1910 was the artistic breakthrough for which the composer…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Eighth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This magnificent book focuses on a single piece of music, Gustav Mahler’s titanic Eighth Symphony, and its premiere in Munich in the summer of 1910, a major musical and cultural event that attracted many eminent personalities from all over Europe. Mahler himself had no doubts about the uniqueness of this symphony which he saw as his "gift to the nation ... a great joy-bringer,” not so far away from Beethoven’s message in his Ninth. He wrote: "Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving."
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