Mahler Symphony No. 2 Resurrection

I shall die in order to live ⁽¹⁾

In the midst of a successful conducting career and a preoccupation with life and death, it took Mahler seven years and some peaceful summers to complete this gigantic symphony.

Mahler compared his second symphony to the first “..like a man to a newborn baby.” ⁽²⁾

The first movement, a doomsday inspired funeral rite, came easy following the completion of the first symphony in 1988. It was based on an epic poem by Mickiewicz.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (pronounced: [miʦ’kʲeviʧ audio (help·info)]; Belarusian: Адам Міцкевіч; Lithuanian: Adomas Bernardas Mickevičius; December 24, 1798 – November 26, 1855) is one of the best-known Polish poets and writers, considered the greatest Polish Romantic poet of the 19th century, alongside Zygmunt Krasiński, Juliusz Słowacki (the Three Bards) and Cyprian Kamil Norwid.

Several busy years were to pass in Leipzig, Prague, Budapest, Hamburg, but it was during summers spent on the shores of the Attersee near Salzburg that he was to find inspiration for the next three movements. A nostalgic Ländler-like Andante is followed by a Viennese walz-like Scherzo filled with humor and satire inspired by a text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, an early 19th century anthology of German folk poems. The scherzo uses the funny tale of St. Anthony of Padua’s sermon to the fish, a possible allusion to Mahler the conductor’s troubles of being heard and accepted as a composer. The fourth movement is a short song for alto voice set to Uhrlicht (’Original Light’), another poem of the same collection. It is a pivotal movement, an introduction of the ideas of hope and resurrection of the massive final movement.

Mahler repeatedly used texts and stories from the Wunderhorn collection in his compositions: in various songs and in the second, third, and fourth symphonies, collectively nicknamed the Wunderhorn symphonies.

Still, the composer was searching for a suitable completion of his symphony and found inspiration in a hymn he heard in 1894 at the funeral of Hans von Bülow entitled Resurrection by Klopstock. The 33:17 finale was completed in a few weeks in the summer of that year. This finale is a behemoth of fanfares on- and off-stage, recollections of previous themes, introduction of the Resurrection theme, and impressive percussion work, all in essence a very dramatic introduction to the second half of the movement, vocal like Beethoven’s chorale finale of the ninth symphony, sung by chorus and mezzo-soprano. The transition from orchestra to the Resurrection choral theme is especially memorable, described by Mahler himself “..as the sound of the nightingale singing over the graves like some ‘last tremulous echo of earthly life..” ⁽³⁾ Mahler uses the first eight lines of the original hymn, but true to himself, completes it with his own text.

The narrative scheme is interesting. The music, however, is superb.

⁽¹⁾ From Mahler’s own text in the chorus lines of the final movement.
⁽²⁾ The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal, North Point Press
⁽³⁾ Henry-Louis de La Gra