A 'superhuman' symphony meets a young maestro

Like many, Tarmo Peltokoski began the close reading of Goethe's Faust during the COVID-19 lockdown. For the conductor who now leads the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, that experience drew him closer and deeper to the spiritual worlds found in a multitude of musical works.

One of them is Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 8 in E-flat Major, which took center stage at his two inaugural concerts on Nov 7 and 8 as the orchestra's new music director.

Reflecting on how the composer completed the magnum opus "in an incredible whirlwind of inspiration", the Finnish conductor compares Mahler to "a superhuman".

In just about two months, the composer, then 46, wrote a cantata-form movement based on the 9th-century Latin text Veni, Creator Spiritus (Come, Creator Spirit), and a nearly one-hour-long "concertante opera" on the complete final scene from Faust, whose protagonist confronts loss and grief, striving for something beyond death. The completed work was dubbed the "Symphony of a Thousand" due to the number of musicians and singers needed.

The grand premiere took place in 1910, with Mahler himself conducting the orchestra, the choirs and the solo singers. The successful performance was attended by authors and artists, including Thomas Mann, Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saens and Leopold Stokowski. It was a zenith of Mahler's later years. It has also posed a formidable challenge for future generations.

There have been only six documented performances of the symphony in China, since it received its premiere in the country in 2002, led by conductor Yu Long.

"I don't want to inflate this work. It should be, and will be, saved for the most special and rare occasions," says Peltokoski, 26, seen by increasingly many as one of the leading conductors of his generation. His decision to take on the work also completes the orchestra's full cycle of the composer's symphonies.

The audience understood that significance. Those who gathered at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall included celebrated artists and former executives of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Superstar Yuja Wang was in attendance to support her friend and the musicians. So was renowned literature scholar Leo Ou-fan Lee.

With nearly 600 performers involved, the stage was extended by 3 meters into the front audience stalls. The soprano portraying the Virgin Mary sang from the balcony aisle, while the offstage brass musicians played high up from the VIP boxes — with Peltokoski turning from the podium to conduct. Professional musicians for the organ, the harmonium, the celesta and the mandolin were invited to create the musical forces marked by the work.

On both days, at the end of each 80-minute performance, many audience members were overcome with emotion, some quietly wiping away tears. The 565 performers on stage received standing ovations lasting more than eight minutes. Taking the curtain calls with his colleagues, Peltokoski, in a tribute to the composer, held up the conductor's score, which was full of his own colorful sticky notes on numerous pages.

Outside the concert hall, he was surrounded by childhood friends and his father, Raine, who flew from their home country in Finland. Music lovers from Hong Kong, as well as mainland cities including Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou, brought records or program books for the conductor to autograph.

Although the inaugural concerts had gone like clockwork, it had been a difficult production to execute.

During the weeklong final rehearsals, Peltokoski pushed the musicians to their limits before carefully balancing the forces to achieve the work's majestic sound, not through sheer volume but by drawing out the greatest possible softness. It was an exercise in subtlety on a grand scale.

"It's not just about synchronizing the sounds, but more about balancing them," says Peltokoski.

The London Philharmonic Choir sent 80 members to Hong Kong, rehearsing with five local choirs, as well as eight outstanding solo singers — sopranos Jacquelyn Wagner, Chen Reiss and Louise Kwong, mezzo-sopranos Catriona Morison and Sasha Cooke, tenor Tuomas Katajala, baritone Rinalds Kandalincevs and bass-baritone Shen Yang.

One of the performance's most magical moments came just before the finale as the choirs softly hummed the line from the closing chorus of Goethe's Faust, Part II, "Alles Vergangliche ist nur ein Gleichnis" (All that passes away is only a likeness). They were accompanied by the string section, which also played pianissimo (very softly).

"The singers use their muscle memory, because the strings go so soft that the singers can hardly hear them," says Victoria Longdon, choir conductor and associate chorus director of the London Philharmonic Choir, who also attended the rehearsals.

"The finale often reminds me of a cicada, which has been a metaphor for immortality in Chinese culture: a cicada, awakening from the heart of the earth and reaching for heavenly peace," says renowned bass-baritone Shen Yang, who played the role of Pater Profundus.

It was his first time collaborating with Peltokoski, an experience he thoroughly enjoyed.

"He's as versatile as an opera conductor," Shen says. "Mahler wrote meticulous dynamic markings for the singers, which were sometimes neglected. The composer's original intentions have been restored here with Tarmo."

For Choi Wai Ki, it was her first time performing the work. A member of the Hong Kong Children's Choir, the 13-year-old rehearsed for hours in the evening after school before the two performances.

"We were so used to the English pronunciation of the letter 'R', that Tarmo patiently showed us how to correctly produce the uvular sound of 'R' in German," says Choi.

Some of the musicians next to her, however, had deep experience of Mahler's Symphony No 8. One choir member had even sung in a historic performance of the work led by legendary conductor Klaus Tennstedt in 1991, the video recording of which still resonates among music lovers worldwide.

"During orchestra rehearsals, without the soloists or the chorus, Tarmo sang all the lyrics, which is not easy for a conductor," says Timothy Tsukamoto, director of artistic planning for the orchestra. "I think he knows the score by heart."

Now, Peltokoski's "Symphony of a Thousand" with the Hong Kong Philharmonic has also been recorded and archived. He will next lead the orchestra on an eight-city European tour, before traveling with them to Beijing in April 2027. There, a much-anticipated performance of Mahler's Symphony No 2 in C Minor, Resurrection, still awaits.

The author is a freelance writer for China Daily.