Along the Way

In the center of downtown Phoenix stands Symphony Hall. Each time I pass the modern structure, I am reminded of what happened there November 15, 1982.

The story began with my visit to New York City the month prior. I'd found a music store south of Lincoln Center that offered a perfect opportunity to price the full score of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, which The Phoenix Symphony was scheduled to perform. I was to sing tenor in one of the two eight-part choirs the music calls for in its celebration of the act of creation.

When I asked the salesclerk about the work, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open (I'd mistakenly told him about The Phoenix Symphony's plans).

"You don't mean that Phoenix, Arizona, the land of cowboys and Indians, is actually going to attempt the Mahler Eighth!" he quipped, astonishment written all over his face.

"Yep, that's correct," I countered weakly, knowing full well that my new Stetson and scuffed cowboy boots weren't helping to boost my home state's cultural reputation in his eyes. But I shrugged it off as just another example of New Yorkers' attitudes toward the provinces.

Surprise and a good measure of doubt also registered on the faces of the customers who had overheard our conversation. To them it apparently was beyond belief that The Phoenix Symphony could perform a work that a music promoter in 1910 had dubbed "The Symphony of a Thousand" and which required three massive choirs, eight vocal soloists, and about 150 instrumentalists.

I smiled, turned, and left without making a purchase.

On opening night, Symphony Hall was filled to overflowing with first-nighters, talking, laughing, and anticipating an evening of music as close to sacred as sacred can be. Then the lights dimmed, the crowd hushed, and conductor Theo Alcantara gave a forceful downbeat which brought an E-flat major chord pealing from the organ. And in its wake, the massed voices rose, singing, Veni! Veni, Creator spiritus! which then unleashed the massive orchestra's augmented brass and woodwinds. It was as Mahler himself once said: "The universe beginning to ring and resound. It is no longer human voices. It is planets and suns revolving in their orbits."

SWEET SOUNDS OF CREATION: THE MAHLER 8TH SYMPHONY

I had rehearsed the Tenor I part of the First Choir. But I was standing next to a Tenor I of the Second Choir that sang a different vocal part. My voice seemed lost. Still I knew Mahler demanded that every performer give his all. And I did, from time to time straining to hear the other First Tenors in the choir and my part in the orchestra.

The First Movement climaxed with the singing of the "Gloria," followed by a fast musical run up the scale by first one choir then the other, their voices pitched still higher and interlaced with brass and woodwinds, the voices rising still higher and higher. Suddenly, the music ended.

Then the phenomenon occurred.

I heard the complex overtones of the voices and orchestra echo as in a deep canyon. On and on the glorious sound continued, refusing to die.

Never before had I heard such harmonies created by decaying overtones. "Was this what it was like at the creation of the universe?" I thought. "Was this the music of the spheres?" Fervently I wished it would go on and on. But then the house lights came up, and the audience rose to its feet.

I knew what was about to happen. And I wanted to cry out, "Stop! Stop!" so those glorious reverberations would continue. But the audience started to applaud. And it killed those sweet sounds of creation.