3RD BOWL PERFORMANCE FOR MAHLER’S EIGHTH

Gustav Mahler could procrastinate over a score and stretch its composition into years. But in writing his Eighth Symphony, which an early--and crass--promoter dubbed “The Symphony of a Thousand” since it requires massed and multiple ensembles, Mahler didn’t dawdle.

Michael Tilson Thomas, who conducts the mighty Eighth in Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night describes the composer’s process: “He wrote it in a burst of energy, in only eight weeks.”

And, as Tilson Thomas tells it, “That energy comes through to me every time I return to the piece. It has such a diversity, as well as such charm, wit and humor.”

The 40-year-old conductor says the longer he lives with Mahler’s Eighth, “the better it looks and the more I enjoy it. It’s so vast, it is sometimes hard to get a grip on it. But each part fits perfectly, fabulously, into the whole. That’s just one of the great things about the work, the intense emotionalism set against a strong structure.”

Though the Bowl forces will not total 1,000, they will fill the composer’s requirements. Two instrumental ensembles, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the L.A. Philharmonic Institute Orchestra, will perform. In addition, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Pacific Chorale (from Orange County) and the San Francisco Boys Chorus. The vocal soloists will be Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Roberta Alexander, Marvis Martin, Ruby Hinds, Janice Taylor, George Gray, Dale Duesing and Willard White. The work has only been performed twice before in the outdoor amphitheater, in 1948 (conducted by the late Eugene Ormandy) and 1977 (led by Erich Leinsdorf).

The sheer size of the work has defeated some proponents of it, Tilson Thomas believes.

“Because there are many moments which tempt the conductor to stretch,” he says, “it’s easy to ignore the composer’s strict instructions about things like tempo. But Mahler was very specific about these things--and a performance can lose its impetus if one doesn’t pay close attention.”

The tall and rangy conductor, whose current association with the L.A. Philharmonic will conclude after the close of the 1985 Philharmonic Institute sessions next Sunday, conducts at summer music festivals in Illinois and Massachusetts next month, then opens the San Francisco Symphony season in September.

OTHER PLACES, OTHER FESTIVALS: Not all summer music festivals take place in Hollywood, the Berkshires, Ravinia and Aspen. Beginning Friday, for instance, two offbeat festivals beckon the adventurous. On Maui in the state of Hawaii, the fourth annual Kapalua Music Festival offers seven concerts of chamber music on the 750-acre resort near the north end of the island. Violist Yizhak Schotten is music director; among his colleagues are pianists Katherine Collier, Beebe Freitas and Cary Lewis; violinists Guy Lumia, Richard Young and William Steck; cellists David Hardy and Dorothy Lewis; flutist Jacqueline Hofto; harpist Emily Mitchell and hornist William Ver Meulen.

Meanwhile, in Sandpoint, Ida., artistic director Gunther Schuller has announced five orchestral concerts and three chamber music events at the Festival at Sandpoint, summer home of the Spokane (Wash.) Symphony. The orchestra concerts, Friday and Saturday and Aug. 8, 9 and 10, will be conducted by Schuller, Fabio Mechetti, Bruce Ferden and Mitch Miller.

PEOPLE: Robert Shaw, longtime music director of the Atlanta Symphony, has signed a series of agreements guaranteeing his continuing service to the orchestra. He will remain as conductor and music director through the end of the 1987-88 season, thereafter holding the title of music director emeritus and conductor laureate, with a new music director to be named. Through 1990-91, Shaw will conduct at least four subscription concerts each season. . . .

Wayne Shoaf has been named assistant archivist at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute at USC. . . . Evelyn Lear, Frederica von Stade, Carol Vaness, Catherine Malfitano, Kathleen Battle, Erie Mills, Jerry Hadley, Brent Ellis, James Morris, Aprile Millo, Paul Plishka and Alan Titus are among the opera singers donating their services to “A Grand Night for Singing,” a benefit from which all proceeds will go to AIDS research and patient care, Aug. 31 at Easthampton High School on Long Island, N.Y. The event is being produced by Robert Jacobson, editor of Opera News magazine, and Matthew A. Epstein.