On April 7, 2016, Kent Tritle, Cathedral Director of Music and Organist at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, led eight vocal soloists and 351 choristers, from the combined choruses of the Oratorio Society of New York, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Cathedral Choristers of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, in the premiere performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (known as “the Symphony of a Thousand”) as rendered in a new organ-choral version by David Briggs. Briggs performed his orchestra-to-organ reduction/transcription of the full symphonic score on the cathedral’s Great Organ, which was restored by Quimby Pipe Organs and re-opened in 2008. The original symphonic version of the work specifies an unusually large symphony orchestra of about 100 players, with addition of an exotic instrument, known as the mandolin. The organ-choral version allows the performance of the work in situations where a large symphony orchestra is unavailable.
The live April 2016 concert at St. John the Divine was recorded by producer Frederick Hohman of Pro Organo, and on November 25, a double-CD album of the performance was released. The double-CD, Music From a Higher Sphere (Pro Organo CD 7276) is packaged with a 20-page booklet, containing the original German and Latin texts and English translation of the texts to Symphony No. 8. Part One, lasting about 25 minutes on disc 1, is based on the hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus” and Part Two, lasting just under one hour, is based on a portion of Goethe’s Faust. David Briggs is in the process of transcribing all of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies for the organ. Briggs had collaborated with Kent Tritle and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine three years earlier, in an organ-choral arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.
A video about the production, in which Briggs and Tritle discuss the work and its performance, can be found at https://vimeo.com/185720512. Music From a Higher Sphere, released on November 25 and available from ProOrgano.com, had exceptionally strong pre-release sales of more than 500 units, according to the label.
