During his lifetime, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was far more highly regarded as a
conductor, especially of opera, than as a composer. After graduation from the
Vienna Conservatory, he moved through a succession of increasingly visible and
important posts as an opera conductor. He was ambitious and demanding, and was
both an outstanding conductor and a champion of new music. His tenures were
marked by critically acclaimed productions but also fractious relations with artistic
directors and orchestra musicians alike. His orchestra musicians respected his
musicianship and the quality of his performance, but they also chafed at his long,
grueling rehearsals and resented his demanding and dictatorial style. In 1897, he
achieved what should have been his dream position, director of the Vienna Court
Opera. Artistically his tenure was a great success; he introduced 33 new operas into
the repertoire and had new productions created for more than 50 others. But while
his productions were critically praised, Mahler had almost constant friction with
singers, orchestra musicians and the opera house staff. Worse was the rampant antiSemitism in Vienna. He was attacked in the press and there was a persistent
campaign to have him removed from his position. He remained at the Court Opera
for ten years, leaving to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera. He became music
director of the New York Philharmonic in 1909, a post he held until his untimely
death in 1911.
Mahler began his Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” in 1888 shortly after completing his
Symphony No. 1, at the time subtitled Titan. The subtitle referred to a novel of the
same name by Jean Paul. It is a long and complicated coming of age story about a
young man of uncertain parentage, and it loosely formed the basis of a program for
the First Symphony. Mahler intended the Second Symphony to continue that
narrative, starting with the funeral of the hero. He initially composed a tone poem
entitled Todtenfeier (Funeral Rites) that was to become the first movement. He
began an adagio the next year, but did not complete it until 1893. It was a very
productive year. He orchestrated a song he had just set from collection of folk poems
called Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn) as a scherzo. He also
orchestrated a second Wunderhorn song, Urlicht (Primal Light), which became the
fourth movement.
He decided that he wanted a choral movement for the finale, even knowing that this
would invite comparison with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He explained, “When I
conceive a great musical picture, I always arrive at a point where I must employ
‘word’ as a bearer of my musical idea.” He got his inspiration from an unlikely
source, the funeral of the eminent conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow. His
relationship with von Bülow was complicated. When Mahler took up the position of
conductor at the Stadttheater in Hamburg, he brought Todtenfeier to von Bülow,
who was then conductor of the Hamburg Symphony. As Mahler played through the
piece on the piano, he would look over at von Bülow, who sat with his hands over
his ears and a grimace on his face. At the conclusion, von Bülow opined, “If what I
have just heard is still music, then I no longer understand anything about music!”
But if he didn’t understand Mahler as a composer, von Bülow was a strong
supporter of him as a conductor, and arranged for Mahler to substitute for him as
his health began to fail. Mahler attended von Bülow’s funeral in 1894 and heard a
choral setting of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s poem Auferstehen (Resurrection). He
wrote to a friend, “It struck me like a thunderbolt, and everything stood clear and
vivid before my soul.”
In the end, he set only the first two verses of Klopstock’s poem, supplying the
balance of the text himself. While Mahler’s text reflects that somewhat overheated
German romanticism, it is surprisingly effective and affecting. Mahler was a superb
orchestrator, and he had a wonderful gift for crafting music that reflected both the
sense and the emotional content of the text. Consider the third choral entrance, Was
enstanden ist, which contains the central tenet of the work – “All that has come into
being shall pass away. But what passes away shall be reborn.” The phrase opens
quietly and mysteriously, like eerie chanting in the darkness, but in a few short
measures has blossomed into a magnificent affirmation of faith, with full chorus and
every brass instrument that Mahler could lay his hands on. The Second Symphony
was premiered in 1895 to great critical acclaim, one of the very few successes his
compositions achieved during his lifetime.
Mahler provided three detailed programs for the Second Symphony, all basically
presenting the same ideas. Musicologist and Mahler expert Gilbert Kaplan has
combined the three programs to produce the consensus version appended below. Of
the program, Mahler wrote, “The original aim of this work was never to describe an
event in detail; rather it concerns a feeling. Its spiritual message is clearly expressed
in the words of the final chorus . . . I leave the interpretation of details to the
imagination of each individual listener.” While Mahler later withdrew the notes,
saying that a work of music should require no explanation, they do provide a
fascinating insight into Mahler’s thinking at the time and the feelings that were
foremost in his mind.
Movement I
We stand by the coffin of a person well loved. His whole life, his struggles, his
passions, his sufferings and his accomplishments on earth once more for the last
time pass before us. And now, in this solemn and deeply stirring moment, when the
confusions 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? What is life and what is
death? Why did you live? Why did you suffer? Is it all nothing but a huge, frightful
joke? Will we live on eternally? Do our life and death have a meaning?” We must
answer these questions in some way if we are to go on living—indeed, if we are to
go on dying! He into whose life this call has once sounded must give an answer. And
this answer I give in the final movement.
Movement II
A memory, a ray of sunlight, pure and cloudless, out of the departed’s life. You must
surely have had the experience of burying someone dear to you, and then, perhaps,
on the way back, some long forgotten hour of shared happiness suddenly rose
before your inner eye, sending, as it were, a sunbeam into your soul—not overcast
by any shadow—and you almost forgot what had just taken place.
Movement III
When you awaken from that blissful dream and are forced to return to this tangled
life of ours, it may easily happen that this surge of life ceaselessly in motion, never
resting, never comprehensible, suddenly seems eerie, like the billowing dancing
figures in a brightly lit ballroom that you gaze into from outside in the dark—and
from a distance so great that you can no longer hear the music. Then the turning and
twisting movement of the couples seems senseless. You must imagine that, to one
who has lost his identity and his happiness, the world looks like this—distorted and
crazy, as if reflected in a concave mirror. Life then becomes meaningless. Utter
disgust for every form of existence and evolution seizes him in an iron grip, and he
cries out in a scream of anguish.
Movement IV
The moving voice of naive faith sounds in our ears. “I am from God and will return to
God. The dear God will give me a light, will light me to eternal blessed life!”
Movement V
Once more we must confront terrifying questions. The movement starts with the
same dreadful scream of anguish that ended the scherzo. 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 Last Trump
sounds; the graves burst open; all the creatures struggle out of the ground, moaning
and trembling. Now they march in a mighty procession: rich and poor, peasants and
kings, the whole church with bishops and popes. All have the same fear, all cry and
tremble alike because, in the eyes of God, there are no just men. 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 trumpets of the Apocalypse ring out. Finally, after all have left their
empty graves and the earth lies silent and deserted, there comes only the longdrawn note of the bird of death. Even it finally dies. What happens now is far from
expected. Everything has ceased to exist. The gentle sound of a chorus of saints and
heavenly hosts is then heard. Soft and simple, the words gently swell up: “Rise again,
yes, rise again thou wilt!” Then the glory of God 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.