CBSO/Gražinytė-Tyla review – massed forces rise to a monumental Mahler

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla is taking it steadily, but she is already almost halfway through a Mahler cycle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. But, unlike some conductors, who postpone the Eighth Symphony until the end of the cycle, Gražinytė-Tyla tackled the monumental score as her fourth Mahler project at Symphony Hall, with the CBSO, its Chorus, Youth Chorus, Children’s Choir and eight soloists, reinforced with the University of Birmingham Voices and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. It may not have been the “symphony of a thousand” that the Eighth was labelled at its first performance, but some 500 performers were crammed on to the stage, spilling around the sides of the auditorium.

With such forces the performance could hardly fail to be a stirring, grand occasion. Gražinytė-Tyla launched into the first part, the huge Veni Creator Spiritus hymn, with tremendous energy, giving a spiky, almost shrill edge to its orchestral interludes, and favouring aural impact over long, beautiful vocal lines. The second part, setting the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, presents very different challenges, and its hour-long arc was not always convincingly sustained – more the work’s fault, you suspect, than the conductor’s.

The best moments, though were glorious – the two mezzos Karen Cargill and Alice Coote quietly eloquent as Mulier Samaritana and Maria Aegyptica respectively, soprano Natalya Romaniw as a touching Penitent, and the other soprano, Erin Wall, soaring over the final Chorus Mysticus. The three male soloists – tenor AJ Glueckert, baritone Roland Wood and bass Morris Robinson – were less striking, though perhaps have fewer opportunities. As a whole, though, it was impossible not to be impressed.