March 16, 17 the newly reconstructed LVSO concert hall (former Vilnius congress hall) opens its doors, meeting the highest international standards and the only one in Lithuania specially adapted for symphonic music. For the solemn opening concert of the new hall, maestro G. Rinkevičius chose one of the greatest works in the classical symphonic music repertoire - the Eighth Symphony of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860–1911).
The eighth symphony surpassed all the ideas developed by G. Mahler in terms of its scale, the grandeur of the composition of the performers and even the idea itself. It will be performed in the LVSO concert hall by soloists sopranos Ksenija Bachritdinova-Kravchuk, Kamilė Bonté and Austėja Zinkevičiūtė, mezzo-sopranos Justina Gringytė and Ieva Prudnikovaitė, tenor Karolis Kašiuba, baritone Raimundas Juzuitis, bass Tadas Girininkas, Kaunas State Choir (conductor Robertas Šerveniks), Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre choir (conductor Česlovas Radžiūnas), boys and youth choir "Ėuoliukas" (conductor Vytautas Miškinis) and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro G. Rinkevičius.
As incredible as it is, this giant symphonic canvas was created in a really short time - in 1906. in the summer, on vacation in the Majernige family's favorite villa on the shore of the lake, surrounded by mountains. According to the composer's wife Alma, G. Mahler planned to return to the Seventh Symphony in the mentioned summer and revise and edit its orchestration. But things happened differently. In his memoirs, G. Mahler wrote that from the first day of his arrival at the summer residence, he was possessed by the creative spirit and completely immersed himself in the work, which later became his Eighth Symphony. After hearing the hymn to the Holy Spirit by chance, the composer saw a vision of the work: "Suddenly I saw the whole work in front of my eyes. All I had to do was write it down, as if it had been dictated.” Mr. Mahler began to compose intuitively, without waiting for the exact text of the hymn to arrive from Vienna. When the text finally arrived, it matched the music perfectly.
Caught by great inspiration, having abandoned the pessimism that permeated many of his works, G. Mahler created the Eighth Symphony as a monument to the eternal and immortal human soul. In the eighth symphony, the composer turned again to the synthesis of music and text. This time he chose two contrasting literary texts, as if in his work he sought to reveal the junction of two different epochs, two periods of human evolution - the witness of the "dark ages", the 9th century. the hymn to the holy spirit "Veni, creator spiritus" attributed to Archbishop Hrabanas Maurus (lit. "O Spirit, Lord, come down") and the 19th-century the philosophical text of the final scene of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust" symbolizing the transparency of human thought. In G. Mahler's symphony, these two texts, distant from each other for a millennium, began to "communicate", their juxtaposition acquired a common meaning, which the composer presented to both his and future listeners as a special gift. Both parts are united by the common idea that salvation is possible because of infinite love.
G. Mahler had no doubts about the symphony's significance, claiming that all the other symphonies he wrote were just a prelude to this one. He called the Eighth Symphony the greatest thing he had ever accomplished, his gift to humanity. "Try to imagine the whole Universe starting to ring and reverberate. It's not human voices anymore, it's the planets and the sun spinning around," G. Mahler wrote.
LVSO concert hall opening concert will take place in 2024 March 16 and 17 at 19 p.m. The conductor is Maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius. Tickets are distributed by the box office of the LVSO concert hall and Bilietai.lt. The general sponsor of the orchestra is Embank, the patron is the Cobalt law firm.
