Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”

Cellos and double basses play the first theme in C minor beneath tremolo in the upper strings. Their phrases break off and start again. Mahler marks the movement Allegro maestoso, with thoroughly serious and solemn expression.

In a letter of 1896 Mahler described this movement as “the titanic struggles of a mighty being still caught in the toils of this world”, grappling with life and fate, and with “his death”. He had earlier called the movement Todtenfeier, funeral rites.

At rehearsal 3 the violins play a long, connected melody in E major, marked “Im Tempo nachgeben”. Soft horns support it. The bass keeps moving below.

In 1891 Mahler played the early version of this movement to Hans von Bülow at the piano, and Bülow covered his ears. At Bülow’s memorial service in Hamburg on 29 March 1894, Mahler heard the hymn that led him to the symphony’s choral finale.

The second subject opens the first development in C major. Winds and strings play it softly, and the harp plays figures between the phrases.

The title page of the earliest manuscript, dated Prague, 10 September 1888, reads “Todtenfeier”, Symphony in C minor, first movement. The title almost certainly comes from Siegfried Lipiner’s German translation of Mickiewicz’s Dziady, published in 1887.

In the summer of 1893, when he resumed the symphony after five years, Mahler told Natalie Bauer-⁠Lechner: “My two symphonies treat exhaustively my entire life; it is experience and suffering that I have written down with my lifeblood.”

In Hamburg in 1891 Mahler failed to persuade Hans von Bülow to perform Todtenfeier. According to the later recollection of Mahler’s friend Josef Foerster, Bülow said: “If that is still music, then I understand nothing about music anymore.”

The second development sets the march beside a solemn chorale for six horns. Its tune is related to the Dies irae, the old chant of the Day of Judgement. Similar hymn-like brass writing returns in the finale.

On 29 April 1894 Mahler completed a new autograph score of this movement, revising it before the symphony was finished. He signed off the autograph of the whole work in Hamburg on 18 December 1894.

The Dies irae chant is quoted from bar 270, and shortly afterwards the movement reaches a harshly dissonant climax at bars 324–⁠329. Stephen Hefling noted that the finale later dissolves the approach to this same climax, well before the chorus proclaims redemption.

The music returns to C minor, and the low-string figures of the opening come back. The basses play in short, broken phrases, as at the start.

In the recapitulation the second subject returns in the violins in E major, the key of its first appearance. The strings play it broadly, with softer chords in the woodwind and horns.

The coda turns back towards C minor. After the violin melody, short string phrases, figures from the earlier wind parts and the march rhythms return.

Mahler conducted the first three movements in Berlin on 4 March 1895 and the whole symphony on 13 December. Most critics were dismissive or hostile. The audience’s enthusiasm grew through the evening and ended in a long ovation.

On the last page Mahler asks for a pause of at least five minutes between the funeral march and the A♭ major dance that follows.

The strings begin a Ländler, an Austrian country dance in three, in A♭ major after the first movement’s C minor. Mahler marks it Sehr gemächlich (very leisurely) and adds Nie eilen, never hurry.

A horn figure introduces running triplets. Only a few string desks play them at first, and more desks join as the figures continue. The tune has moved to the minor, but Mahler marks the passage “Nicht eilen. Sehr gemächlich.”

At Steinbach am Attersee in July 1893, Mahler worked on three movements: this dance, the fish-sermon scherzo and Urlicht. He dated the Andante’s orchestral draft 30 July, eleven days after the song.

The Ländler returns in A♭ major. The violins play the dance tune while the cellos add a new legato melody below it, and the double basses play the beat pizzicato.

With the support of two wealthy Hamburg industrialists, Hofmeister of Leipzig published the symphony first in Hermann Behn’s two-piano arrangement in 1896, then as a full score in February 1897.

The minor-key episode returns, and winds and brass join the strings. The triplets now drive a full orchestral passage.

In a letter of 1896 Mahler called the Andante and the Scherzo “episodes from the life of the fallen hero”. In the same letter he described the first movement as the hero’s titanic struggle with life and fate, and his death.

On 4 March 1895 Mahler conducted the first three movements in Berlin. The Andante and scherzo followed the funeral march, and the concert stopped there. Urlicht and the choral finale were first heard in public on 13 December 1895.

The Ländler returns in A♭ major, played pizzicato by the strings. Flute, piccolo and harp add short notes above.

By about 20 June 1893 Mahler and his household, Natalie Bauer-⁠Lechner among them, had moved to Steinbach am Attersee. He worked first on this Andante and finished its sketch in about seven days. He had not yet orchestrated it.

The timpani strike G and C. The strings then begin a continuous running figure, with short woodwind interjections above it. The heading asks for quietly flowing motion, and the string figures repeatedly turn back on themselves.

The E♭ clarinet enters over the continuous string figuration with a short solo, which Mahler marks mit Humor, with humour. It plays in its high, shrill register above the strings.

The scherzo shares its music with Mahler’s Wunderhorn song Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt. In the song, St Anthony finds his church empty and takes his sermon to the river, where the fish gather with their mouths open and enjoy every word. Afterwards the pike still steal and the carp still gorge themselves.

Bassoons and cellos take the melody into the lower voices of the orchestra. The short running figures continue around them, and they keep going when Mahler varies the tune.

The scherzo is the fish-sermon song without the voice. The woodwinds play the vocal tune in fragments. The strings keep the song’s continuous semiquaver motion.

On 8 July 1893 Mahler finished the voice-and-piano manuscript of the fish sermon song. Eight days later he dated the orchestral draft of the scherzo. The orchestral version of the song followed on 1 August.

The trio opens in C major. After a rumble in the brass and timpani, piccolo and flute hold a high note over low strings marked sehr wuchtig, very weighty. Horns and trumpets then play a fanfare that refers to the First Symphony, and at Vorwärts the full orchestra enters.

The first trumpet plays a long melody over harp arpeggios and running strings. The other trumpets hold soft harmony around it.

At rehearsal 43 the opening tempo returns. Running figures pass through the divided strings while the trumpets hold sustained harmony above them. The long melody ends and the scherzo’s earlier motion resumes.

The scherzo’s opening texture returns in C minor, with running semiquavers in muted violins, plucked lower strings and a bundle of twigs on the bass drum. At rehearsal 46 the full orchestra enters fortissimo. Rushing runs in the winds and strings follow.

The scherzo reaches a B♭ minor climax. Brass chords and percussion play over the running strings. The passage returns at the start of the finale, after the alto’s prayer.

Long chords in the winds and brass make a diminuendo. Beneath them, divided cellos and basses take up their quick figures again, and stopped horns add a pinched sound.

The scherzo slows by imperceptible degrees. Muted trumpets and soft woodwind chords hold above a timpani roll. Horns and trumpets play a quiet phrase that the violins take up, molto espressivo, and both harps play an upward glissando.

At rehearsal 54 the woodwind play rushing scales, ff, above a falling harp glissando. Tempo I returns with the running strings, which thin out over the last pages until only pizzicato strings and a stroke on the tam-tam remain. Mahler directs that the fourth movement follows without any break.

An alto begins alone, with “O Röschen roth!” in long, held notes. Trumpets and horns follow with a hymn. Mahler marks the song Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (very solemn, yet simple) and adds Choralmässig, in the manner of a chorale.

The brass chorale moves in rising steps. An expanded version of this ascending theme returns in the finale as the resurrection theme.

The alto sings “Der Mensch liegt in größter Noth! Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!” The vocal line takes on chromatic notes, and the metre keeps changing. At “Je lieber möcht’ ich im Himmel sein” (I would rather be in heaven), Mahler marks a ritenuto and molto espress.

Mahler dated an orchestral manuscript of Urlicht at Steinbach am Attersee on 19 July 1893. That summer he was also working on the dance movements of the Second Symphony. The song already existed before he decided to place it in the symphony.

Urlicht is a folk poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. It was printed in the second volume (Heidelberg, 1808) under the heading Mündlich, meaning by word of mouth. Mahler repeats several lines, among them “Ach nein, ich liess mich nicht abweisen.”

At Etwas bewegter the music turns to the minor. A clarinet figure, harp notes and a glockenspiel stroke mark the time as the traveller meets an angel. A solo violin plays a longer melody, and three sharps appear in the signature as the angel tries to turn the traveller back.

Mahler marks the line “Ach nein! Ich liess mich nicht abweisen.” leidenschaftlich, passionately, over string tremolo. “Ich bin von Gott, ich will wieder zu Gott” is marked zart drängend (gently urging). The phrases then rise with growing expression.

After the alto’s last word, “Leben”, the solo violins and strings continue in D♭ major with the harps. Mahler marks the ending gänzlich ersterbend, dying away completely, and writes at the foot of the page that the finale follows without a break.

The orchestral outcry from the scherzo breaks in after the silence that follows Urlicht. The horns then play a phrase that later becomes the resurrection theme. The melody appears here before the chorus sings its words.

Horns play calls from offstage. Descending triplets pass down through the winds, and a measured wind chorale moves over pizzicato string quavers. Pauses separate these sections, and each has its own instruments and its own distance.

After a silence, flute, oboe and clarinet play a chorale pianissimo over pizzicato violas and cellos. It recalls the Dies irae from the first movement’s funeral march. Some of its intervals anticipate the resurrection theme.

At Hans von Bülow’s memorial service in Hamburg on 29 March 1894, Mahler heard Klopstock’s resurrection hymn. He used its first two stanzas for the finale and wrote the rest of the text himself.

A solo trombone, marked bestimmt (decisively), takes up the chorale, and a trumpet follows. The horns then come to the front, the offstage horns play again, and the string tremolo dies away to nothing.

Figures pass between the winds and quicken. Mahler marks Etwas drängend, somewhat pressing, then Sehr drängend, very pressing, and the woodwinds rise to fortissimo. The sound then falls away to the low trombones and a faint timpani roll.

After a general pause the trombones and tuba, with the contrabassoon, play a broad chorale, Wieder sehr breit. The trumpets join at Etwas energischer, and a long crescendo leads to a brass fanfare.

The brass fanfare returns in C major. Horns and trumpets exchange repeated calls over harps and cymbals, while the winds and strings play running figures. The resurrection theme is heard again, far more assertive than before.

A percussion crescendo leads to a brass fanfare and the Allegro energico. Earlier themes return as a march, with sharply articulated rhythms and fast string figures. Mahler marks the passage Nicht zu schnell (not too fast).

The Dies irae becomes a march, serious and at first upbeat, and the trumpets play a chorale-like variation of the same melody above it. At Kräftig (vigorously), Mahler’s note in the score states that a brisk march tempo has now been reached.

Deep bells of no fixed pitch sound against the march, and shortly before they enter the woodwinds raise their bells. Mahler wrote for three such bells, in three passages of the movement totalling twenty-two bars.

Mahler jotted down sketches for the finale as soon as he reached home from Bülow’s funeral, and completed it within about three weeks the following summer. He signed the autograph full score of the whole symphony on 18 December 1894.

The march breaks off into speech-like phrases in the strings. Cellos and bassoons play the melody in the foreground, and distant trumpets and percussion continue behind them. At rehearsal 22 Mahler directed the conductor to keep the far-off fanfares from disturbing the melody.

The cellos play the “O glaube” material in phrases that move between duple and triple metres. Much later the alto sings “O glaube, mein Herz” (believe, my heart) to a return of the same phrases.

Far off, a band of trumpets, triangle, cymbals and bass drum plays fanfare signals across the cellos’ line, repeatedly. Mahler sets the band at the greatest distance and at one point asks for it to sound much stronger.

At rehearsal 26 Mahler marks Più mosso and molto accelerando. Woodwind, horns and trumpets play fortissimo over triangle, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam and timpani. Mahler’s programme for the passage read: “The earth trembles, the graves burst open, the dead arise and march forth in endless procession.”

At rehearsal 27 the climax breaks off, and Mahler marks Langsam, immer noch mehr zurückhaltend. Three pairs of horns play pp chords over a timpani tremolo, sempre pp. The oboe and cellos play separate lines, and the clarinets are marked “(Echo)”.

At the great summons the main orchestra drops out for long stretches. Trumpets play from opposing directions and horns hold distant notes. Flute and piccolo play birdsong figures, marked wie eine Vogelstimme, and at times a single instrument sounds alone.

Mahler conducted the first complete performance of the symphony in Berlin on 13 December 1895. Nine months earlier the city had heard only the first three movements. The audience applauded warmly, and the next morning’s newspapers renewed the attacks.

In Mahler’s programme the last trumpet sounds, and the silence that follows holds “a distant nightingale, a last tremulous echo of earthly life”. In the score the flute and piccolo play this passage, marked to sound like a bird’s voice.

At rehearsal 31, marked Langsam. Misterioso, the chorus enters a cappella in G♭ major at ppp. Klopstock’s hymn promises that dust will rise again after a short rest. The soprano soloist sings within the choral sound, and Mahler marked her part “ohne im Geringsten hervorzutreten”.

Klopstock wrote that the one who made you (“der dich schuf”) will give you immortal life. Mahler sets “der dich rief”: the one who called you. He also turns “I shall be sown” into “you will be sown”, and drops the Hallelujahs.

The chorus completes its first stanza, with the soprano soloist singing within its line, and the orchestra continues alone. Mahler marks Sehr breit, very broad, for horns and trumpets in portamento, then Streng im Tempo, strictly in time, with long bows in the strings. The chorus returns for the second stanza.

Klopstock’s second stanza reads “To bloom again you are sown! The Lord of the harvest goes and gathers in, like sheaves, us who died.” The chorus sings it quietly. An orchestral interlude then ends Klopstock’s text, and Mahler’s own words follow.

This is Barbara Schubert’s DuPage Symphony Orchestra in Edman Memorial Chapel, Wheaton College, Illinois, on 22 May 2004. Eric Pancer taped the concert on a Sony MiniDisc recorder. He put it on the Internet Archive that December.

Mahler’s own words begin with an appeal to the heart. The alto sings in B♭ minor beside a cor anglais, over muted strings and plucked bass notes.

The soprano follows the alto: “O believe, you were not born in vain!” A solo violin on the D string continues her line over tremolo strings. At rehearsal 42 a harp glissando, its first note strongly accented, leads upward into the next section.

Low voices bring back the resurrection theme with Mahler’s own words, “Was entstanden ist, das muss vergehen”, over trombones, tuba and a high violin trill. The chorus sings “auferstehen”. Alto and chorus then sing “Hör’ auf zu beben!” (stop trembling) at ppp, followed by “Bereite dich zu leben!” (prepare to live).

Alto and soprano sing “O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!” (O pain, all-penetrating one). Mahler marks the passage Mit Aufschwung, aber nicht eilen (with uplift, but not hurrying), and later Vorwärts and Drängend. The duet briefly refers to the melody of Urlicht.

The first choral melody, first heard without accompaniment, returns in E♭ major with brass and organ. Soprano and alto join the chorus. The organ is marked volles Werk, full organ.

Mahler told Natalie Bauer-⁠Lechner that the build-up and surge of the closing pages were “so immense that afterwards even I do not know how I came to write it”.

On 8 December 1895, five days before the première, Mahler wrote to the soprano Anna von Mildenburg about the bells he needed. He had taken the train through snow-covered fir woods to a foundry at Zehlendorf, because “only a bell founder could help me”.

After the singers finish, the orchestra continues with organ and bells in E♭ major. On the last page Mahler marks Mit höchster Kraftentfaltung (with the utmost force), then a sharply cut-off ending, scharf abgerissen. The whole orchestra releases the final chord together.

Over a sustained E♭ major chord the trumpets play a short two-note figure again and again, loud and then louder. All ten horns play the long closing chord with the full orchestra, organ and bells.