Concert IV, 2025-2026 Season

Resurrection

Symphony No. 2 in F minor, Op. 36, Gustav Mahler

Mahler wrote the first movement of this symphony in 1888, and originally intended it as a Todtenfeier—that is, a funereal work, possibly (according to Mahler himself) commemorating the death of the hero of his First Symphony, who was a fictionalized version of himself. Partly due to his overwhelming responsibilities as an opera conductor and director, which meant that he only composed seriously during the summers, Mahler set this movement aside and did not pick up the symphony again until 1893, finishing it in 1894 when he was 34. 

Like all nineteenth-century composers. Mahler was supremely conscious of Beethoven as both a model and a looming presence. Nine symphonies had become the number to aspire to—indeed, Mahler had an existential crisis about writing more than nine, and died during the composition of his Tenth. Composers of Mahler's generation were also influenced by the then-unprecedented scale of Beethoven's Ninth, and Bruckner and Mahler in particular were inspired to write ever larger works. Three of Mahler's symphonies (numbers 2, 3, and 8) follow Beethoven's Ninth in including a chorus as well as an orchestra. 

The fourth and fifth movements of the Second Symphony feature, first, a vocal soloist and then a chorus with the soloists. The text for the fourth movement is from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of folk-like poems that Mahler often used. This particular poem bemoans the misery of life on earth and then says that life in Heaven would be better. The much longer texts for the fifth movement start with a poem about resurrection by the Romantic poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, and continue with words Mahler wrote himself about the ecstatic moment of "dying in order to live." This symphony is often subtitled the "Resurrection" symphony.

Mahler was born into a largely secular Jewish family and did not formally convert to Catholicism until 1897. His conversion was probably the result of several impulses, including a necessary attention to his career in the increasingly antisemitic atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna. However, he had long embraced a generalized spirituality common in German-speaking lands at the time, in which the language of Christian, often Catholic, mysticism was adopted to describe the aims and effects of great art. It is probably in this spirit that one should hear the resurrection theme in the last movement, rather than as a meditation on the divinity of Christ.

To listen to Mahler is often to feel that one is in unusually direct contact with an intense and unguarded emotional life. Wild changes of mood and a pervasive sense of yearning characterize much of his music. This intensity, changeability, and unpredictability, as well as the "collage" effect of different kinds of music—military, church, folk, sentimental, etc.—placed cheek by jowl with each other, often suggest that there is a story "behind" the notes. And for this symphony, there is. Mahler wrote his narration for the work for a performance in Dresden in 1901, so it may or may not have been exactly in his mind eight years earlier when he wrote the symphony. True to form, he later withdrew this narrative from publication. (After all, maybe the music should "speak for itself" and not be limited by mere words?) Nonetheless, whatever its status in Mahler's own mind, it provides both a helpful emotional guide through this huge work and a verbal analogue to the journey it traces.

Mahler's own notes to this work (translated from German);

First Movement: Allegro maestoso
"We are standing near the grave of a well-loved man. His whole life, his struggles, his sufferings, and his accomplishments on earth pass before us. And now, in this solemn and deeply stirring moment, when the confusion and distractions of everyday life are lifted like a hood from our eyes, a voice of awe-inspiring solemnity chills our heart, a voice that, blinded by the mirage of everyday life, we usually ignore: "What next?" it says. "What is life and what is death? Will we live on eternally? Is it all an empty dream, or do our life and death have a meaning?" And we must answer this question, if we are to go on living. The next three movements are conceived as intermezzi.

Second Movement: Andante
"A blissful moment in the dear departed's life and a sad recollection of his youth and lost innocence."

Third Movement: Scherzo
A spirit of disbelief and negation has seized him. He is bewildered by the bustle of appearances, and he loses his perception of childhood and the profound strength that love alone can give. He despairs both of himself and of God. The world and life begin to seem unreal. Utter disgust for every form of existence and evolution seizes him in an iron grasp, torments him until he utters a cry of despair.

Fourth Movement: Alto solo. 'Urlicht' (Primeval Light) – from the Knaben Wunderhorn
The stirring words of simple faith sound in his ears: "I come from God and I will return to God!"

Fifth Movement: Aufersteh'n (Resurrection)
Once more, we must confront terrifying questions, and the atmosphere is the same as at the end of the third movement. The voice of the Caller is heard. The end of every living thing has come, the last judgment is at hand, and the horror of the day of days has come upon us. The earth trembles, the graves burst open, the dead arise and march forth in endless procession. The great and the small of this earth, the kings and the beggars, the just and the godless all press forward. The cry for mercy and forgiveness sounds fearful in our ears. The wailing becomes gradually more terrible. Our senses desert us, all consciousness dies as the Eternal Judge approaches. The last trump sounds; the trumpets of the Apocalypse ring out. In the eerie silence that follows, we can just barely make out a distant nightingale, a last tremulous echo of earthly life. The gentle sound of a chorus of saints and heavenly hosts is then heard: "Rise again, yes, rise again thou wilt!" Then God in all His glory comes into sight. A wondrous light strikes us to the heart. All is quiet and blissful. Lo and behold: there is no judgment, no sinners, no just men, no great and no small; there is no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence."

© Mary Hunter