Music: Bowl Full

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Gustav Mahler's massive Eighth Symphony is something like Texas—big as all get-out, very impressive in spots, and full of flat and windy stretches. It requires so huge a cast that it has seldom been performed in the U.S. (the last time was in 1942). Last week, in Hollywood's huge open-air Bowl, Conductor Eugene Ormandy roamed over it with an orchestra of 120, including an organ, two harps and a mandolin; two choruses of 350 each; a boy's choir of 100; seven vocal soloists and a separate band of eight trumpets and four trombones. Consensus: outdoors was the safest place to hear it.