Gustav Mahler (1860-1911):

Symphony No. 2 in C minor: "Resurrection"

Allegro Maestoso (Funeral Pomp)

Andante Moderato

In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (Scherzo)

Sehr feierlicht aber Schlicht ("Primeval Light")

Im Tempo des Scherzo

With our late 20th-century perspective, we view Gustav Mahler unambiguously as one of the great composers. But it was not always so. To the students and faculty of the Vienna Conservatory, he was a brilliant pianist; to the turn-of-the-century audiences throughout the musical world, he was the most celebrated conductor yet known. But Mahler himself had no doubts: "I conduct to live," he once explained - "but I live to compose."

Mahler was born in 1860, the eldest surviving child of a large jewish family in the center of what is now the Czech Republic, just in Bohemia. Within a year, as soon as travel restrictions on jews were relaxed, the family moved just across the line to Jihlava (Iglau) in Moravia where Mahler's father Bernhard set up a small distillery and managed a few taverns. Jihlava was a garrison town and the young Gustav picked up many of his early musical influences from the bugle calls, marches and songs which he heard from the soldiers. It was from his love of these military sounds that we can trace the prominent use of trumpets in particular but all wind instruments (and percussion) in general. It has been said that Mahler restored the woodwinds to their proper place in the orchestra.

Mahler's life was dominated by strife, some external, but much of it internal. He never quite fitted in, though he wished to. As he once remarked "I am thrice homeless: as a native of Bohemia in Austria; as an Austrian among Germans; and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed." He might have added that, unlike Dvorak or Smetana, he did not speak Czech and was therefore in his youth an outsider to the ordinary people. As an example of a self-imposed struggle, he hated the idea of writing programmatic music, with its accompanying explanations, but could not stop himself from doing so for each of his symphonies.

Like Beethoven's father, Bernhard was a coarse, domineering man who saw Gustav as his ticket to affluence by exhibiting him as a prodigy. But, just as with Beethoven, the scheme did not work out that way. Mahler did not love his father - all of his sympathies were with his mother, and was diagnosed by Sigmund Freud later in life as having a mother fixation.

Nevertheless, because of his father's ambition and his own talent, Mahler was accepted into the conservatory at fifteen and became an outstanding student, especially at piano and composition. In 1878 he won the composition prize for a Piano Quintet, which he later destroyed. Interestingly, there is not a single original published work of his which is not either song, symphony or both.

To Mahler, song and instrumental music were inextricably linked - it was almost impossible for him to have one without the other. Even in his purely instrumental symphonies, he frequently drew on his own songs for melody. Strangely, even though he was primarily a conductor of operas, he never finished on original opera (although he did so much to finish an opera for von Weber - Die Drei Pintos - that it was almost an original work).

After a summer conducting at Bad Hall in upper Austria, Mahler accepted his first permanent conducting position at Ljubljiana (Slovenia was then part of Austria) in 1881. From there he took posts in Olomouc (Olmütz) in Moravia, Kassel (Prussia), Prague and Leipzig. These were mainly assistant positions. He excelled in them sufficiently, however, getting rave reviews at every position, [so] that, in 1888, he was offered the post of Opera Director in Budapest, the "twin" capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though in reality not an equal twin to Vienna. Again he was tremendously successful, particularly with a production of Don Giovanni which Brahms declared "the best I have heard".

In 1891, he landed a major appointment as Opera Director at Hamburg. Among his achievements there was the German première of Eugene Onegin, with Tchaikovsky himself present, who wrote to his nephew: "The conductor here is not of the usual ilk but a man of genius who would give his life to conduct the première".

In 1897 he was appointed to maybe the top job in the musical world at that time: Director of the Vienna Opera. He was a sensation. The only cloud in the sky was anti-semitism which finally drove him in 1908 to New York (a more remunerative post and by then perhaps greater artistically even than Vienna). But by then, his health was failing, he was preoccupied with his own mortality, and was not able to give his best. He went home to Vienna and died there in 1911 at the age of fifty.

Well might you ask when had he time to compose nine-plus long symphonies and six major orchestral song cycles? The answer is that he was consumed with such passion to compose that he spent every moment he could in its pursuit. Mainly, during the summer months, out of the opera season, he retreated with his wife and children to the mountains and united his two great passions: composition and nature for, even more so than Beethoven, the natural world was a constant source of inspiration for him.

Tonight's symphony, his second, was a long time in gestation: six years. As such, it connects two different stages in his life and musical development. The first movement, subtitled Funeral Pomp, was completed soon after his first symphony while still at Leipzig (1888), although at one point, he considered it separately as a Requiem. The other movements were added in 1893-4 while in Hamburg. Thus the pause of "at least 5 minutes" between the first two movements is not only programmatically required but also symbolizes the intervening years: there is a distinct difference in the maturity of style before and after the break. The outer movements form the major part of the symphony: about 20% and 40% respectively. The inner movements, which Mahler considered intermezzi, make up the rest.

Of the first movement, Mahler wrote: "I have called it Funeral Pomp... it is the hero of my D-Major symphony [No. 1] whom I bear to his grave there and upon the clear reflection of whose life I gaze from a higher vantage point. Why hast thou lived? Why hast thou suffered? Is all this a ghastly joke?... I give the answer in the last movement...". The movement opens in dramatic fashion, quickly introducing the rhythm which pervades the first and last movements: groups of quarter-notes divided into eighth, sixteenth rest, sixteenth. Later in the movement, we hear the horns play the familiar Dies Irae theme, followed by a solo trumpet announcing the "resurrection theme". The movement ends in equally dramatic fashion with unison triplets descending in a fortissimo chromatic scale followed by pizzicato pianissimo Cs in the strings and bass drum.

The second movement is a gracious ländler (an Austrian peasant dance in slow 3/8 time) which is in total contrast to the first movement. Even so, it has a rather agitated second subject, after which follows a variation of the opening, except this time with a lovely cello descant. When the first subject again returns, the strings are in pizzicato.

The third movement, also in 3/8, is more of a scherzo and is based on Mahler's own setting from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn). In this very humorous song, St Anthony preaches to the fishes, which listen attentively but, like their human counterparts, forget the lessons immediately the sermon is over. The trumpets are again prominent but this time in a lilting melody (not from the song) which contrasts with the more frenzied swimming of the fish.

The fourth movement, the wonderfully evocative "Urlicht" (Primeval Light) - also from Wunderhorn - follows immediately with the mezzo-soprano intoning "O rosebud red". The scoring is very light - never more than a few instruments at once - and the dynamics climax at a robust "piano". Like a good sorbet, it prepares the senses for...

..."Aufersteh'n" (Resurrection), which follows directly. This movement, inevitably compared to the finale of Beethoven's 9th, is both deeper and grander in scale than its predecessor. To many listeners, it is the most emotionally charged music ever written - there is something about it which seems to bypass the normal hearing mechanism and passes straight to the brain! The title does not refer to the resurrection of a deity, such as Christ, but of all mankind. Nor does it refer only to the Day of Judgment, at which all beings, living and dead, arise at the sound of the last trumpet and go to be judged by their maker. Rather it refers to what follows: life everlasting - the victory of life over the grave.

The first eight lines, sung by Soprano and Chorus, are from Klopstock's ode Aufersteh'n. However, Mahler decided to omit the last four lines and substitute 19 of his own (starting with "O glaube, mein Herz"), after a fruitless search for more appropriate text. The final stanza is a paraphrase of Klospstock's opening. Here we have one of the Mahlerian enigmas: although he was essentially agnostic (he was quite happy to convert to Roman Catholicism in order to secure the Vienna Directorship), he not only wrote music on a religious theme, but contributed profound poetry to put the finishing touches to it.

Immediately our attention is arrested by a tremendous fortissimo (fff) from all instruments. Gradually, we hear various themes again along with some new ones, sometimes played in the most eerie setting, including the Dies Irae. Again there is a tremendous crescendo, followed by the resurrection theme in the trumpets. Later, we hear the offstage trumpets, more climactic music until eventually, all subsides peacefully. This is the moment of "Der grosse Appel" (the great roll-call): offstage horns, then trumpets, followed by the reassuring song of the nightingale in the piccolo and flute. Redemption is at hand. Silence... Into this silence steals the barely perceptible "Aufersteh'n" sung a cappella by the full chorus with soprano soloist. Later, after the mezzo's blissful statement of faith has been gloriously affirmed by the soprano, the chorus returns and all singers gradually reinforce the message until the orchestra builds to the final triumphant Eb major chord.

Urlicht Primeval Light

Mezzo-soprano

O Röschen rot! O rosebud red!

Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not, Man lies in greatest need,

Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein, Man lies in greatest pain,

Ja lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein. I'd rather wished I were in heaven.

Da kam ich auf einem breiten Weg, Then I came upon a broad road;

Da kam ein Engelein und wollt' mich There came an angel who wanted to

abweisen. refuse me.

Ach nein? Ich ließ mich nicht Ah no, I would not be refused.

abweisen.

Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu I am of God and wish to return to God!

Gott!

Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen The dear God will give me a light,

geben,

Wird leuchten mir in das ewig selig Will light my way into eternal

Leben! blissful life!

Aufersteh'n Resurrection

Chorus and Soprano

Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du Arise, yes, you will arise

mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh! my dust, from brief repose!

Unsterblich Leben Immortal Life

wird, der dich rief, dir geben will he, who called you, give you.

Wieder aufzublüh'n, wirst du gesä't! Again to bloom you are sown!

der Herr der Ernte geht The Lord of the Harvest goes forth

und sammelt Garben and gathers the sheaves,

uns ein, die starben. even we who have died.

Mezzo-soprano

O glaube, Mein Herz, o glaube, O believe, my heart, o believe,

Es geht dir nichts verloren! nothing of you willbe lost!

Dein ist, was du gesehnt! What you longed for is yours,

dein was du geliebt, what you loved - yours,

was du gestritten! what you fought for.

Sporano

O glaube: Du warst nicht umsonst Believe: you were not born in vain,

geboren!

Hast nicht umsont gelebt, gelitten! Have not vainly lived, suffered!

Chorus

Was enstanden ist, das muss vergehen! What was created, must pass away!

Was vergangen, auferstehen! What passed away, must arise!

Hör auf zu beben! Cease to tremble!

Bereite dich zu leben! Prepare yourself to live!

Mezzo-soprano, Soprano, Chorus

O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer! O pain! that pervades all

Dir bin ich entrugen! I have escaped you!

O Tod! Du Allbezwinger! O death! that overcomes all

Nun bist du bezwungen! Now you are overcome!

Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen, With wings that I wrested for myself

in heissem Liebesstreben, in love's ardent struggle,

werd ich entschweben I shall soar away

zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug gedrungen! to the light no eye has pierced!

Chorus

Sterben werd ich, um zu leben! Die I shall, so as to live!

All

Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n wirst du Arise, yes, you will arise

Mein Herz, in einem Nu! My heart, in an instant!

Was du geschlagen What you have conquered

zu Gott wird es dich tragen! will carry you to God!