Symphony of a Thousand

By ALAN RICH

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Symphony of a Thousand (Hollywood Bowl; 17,953 seats; $ 75 top)
 

TX:The Los Angeles Philharmonic presents the opening concert of the 1996 Hollywood Bowl season. Conductor, Eliahu Inbal, with the William Hall Master Chorale, the All-American Boys Chorus, the Master Chorale Children's Chorus and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Vocal soloists: Faye Robinson, Christine Brewer, Gwendolyn Bradley, Florence Quivar, Janis Taylor, Michael Sylvester, Gregg Baker, Tom Krause. Reviewed July 9, 1996. Running time: 1 hour, 19 min. TX:Program: Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in E flat. Known as the "Symphony of a Thousand," after the performing forces the composer envisioned, Mahler's gigantic Eighth Symphony can actually get by on less. Certainly the 470 participants engaged in this opening concert of the 75th Hollywood Bowl season proved equal to the task. What task? Master manipulator that he surely was, Mahler knew the value of the socko ending to blot out memories of what went before. Each of the work's two massive movements arrives at a juncture, near the end, where the composer throttles his forces down to a deep crouch and then builds, inexorably and irresistibly, toward an oratorical finale of far-flung majesty.

Under the power of those moments, one might easily forget the vast and empty rhetoric, the agonizing procession of stops and starts, that came before.

Israeli conductor Eliahu Inbal, whose aptitude for exploring the Mahlerian spaciousness is demonstrated by his recordings for Denon, took on the Eighth after the scheduled Robert Shaw fell ill. As well as anyone could, he honored the music's sporadic bursts of momentum, aided by the physiognomy of the Bowl itself, with the lightning towers nicely serving as platforms for offstage instrumental and vocal forces. Also, as well as anyone could, he achieved some sort of overall balance between the monster choral aggregation and the excellent solo vocal group on the one hand, and the grand noisemaking prowess of the orchestra itself on the other.

Let it be noticed, however, that the symphony, long unknown except by reputation and, therefore, the stuff of legends, drew animpressive 8,362 Bowlgoers this time around, nearly half capacity.