“Well, here is the symphony no one could capture—captured at last? I think so! Every music lover grayer than a few decades will recall how pervasive once was the notion of an “unrecordable piece,” a work destined to mock the best efforts of microphones and loudspeakers of the day. … The Mahler Symphony of a Thousand was a holy grail of sorts, attempted from time to time, but essentially out of reach. … I thought of this, as the walls of my listening room came tumbling down for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I found myself in the most open listening environment I have yet encountered for the Mahler Eighth. Reference Recordings has managed to capture the mammoth forces here utterly without strain in the Mormon Tabernacle’s smoothly ideal acoustic. … The fugal choral passages just before the first movement’s recapitulation are spectacular here, a gorgeously massive army of singers veering away from you at the last moment over floor-shaking pedals. The organ, bass, and lower brass sonority is palpable in its naturalness. You keep thinking you are there, as the speeding choristers sweep over your head with yipes of joy. … The Utah Symphony, itself, plays seductively here. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, sweepingly grand like no other in confidence, is assisted in Part II by the children’s chorus from the Madeleine Choir School. They are limpid and beautiful. The acoustic is equally flattering to soft strings and golden trombones as to girlish voices. And when all come together at the end, it is astonishing how the sound keeps expanding for the brass apotheosis. I come back to the original point. I’d say we have finally tamed the Mahler Eighth sonically, … in case you didn’t notice, this is a rave!”