After having heard earlier this month the Met Orchestra's performance of Mahler #9, I went yesterday evening to Carnegie Hall to watch the Philadelphia Orchestra perform that composer's Second Symphony, the "Resurrection." The program was conducted by the ensemble's music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and featured Angela Meade (soprano) and Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano) as soloists. The fifth-movement chorus was provided by the Westminster Choir.
Of all the works in the repertoire, it is probably the Second Symphony that has exerted the greatest influence on me over the years. I first heard it back in 1980's when Leonard Bernstein, filling in for a colleague who'd fallen ill, conducted the New York Philharmonic on short notice. Even after all this time, I still consider this the single best classical music performance I've ever attended. No other work has ever affected me as deeply as has this symphony. Its reflections on death and rebirth possess a profundity that forces the listener to reexamine his beliefs on the very meaning of existence. The conclusion, in which life emerges triumphant over death, never fails to have a huge emotional impact on the audience.
Much has been written about the possible programs Mahler had in mind when composing his symphonies. This confusion was at least partly caused by the stance taken by Mahler himself - he continually issued statements on the meaning of his work only to later withdraw them. This ambivalence may have had something to do with the composer's wish not to have his work considered alongside that of the other famous conductor/composer of the era, Richard Strauss, whose tone poems do indeed correspond to quite explicit musical programs.
If one wishes to ascertain the true genesis of this symphony, one would do best to study Mahler's troubled relationship with his mentor, the prominent conductor Hans von Bülow. It was von Bülow's rejection of Mahler's early music - he actually covered his ears when the composer sat at the piano and played selections for him - that created doubts in Mahler's mind serious enough to stall his progress on this work. Upon von Bülow's death, this crisis of confidence was suddenly resolved and Mahler was at last able to see his way forward. He acknowledged as much in a letter to Arthur Seidl that was quoted in this concert's Program Notes:
"I had long considered the idea of employing a chorus for the last movement, and only the fear that this might be seen as a superficial imitation of Beethoven made me hesitate time and again. Then Bülow died, and I went to his funeral. My mood as I sat there thinking of the man who had died was wholly in tune with the work that was growing in my mind. Suddenly the choir chanted from the organ-loft the Klopstock chorale Auferstehn! It was as if I had been struck by lightning-the whole work now stood clearly before me! Such is the flash for which the creator waits, such is sacred inspiration!"
A psychoanalyst could spend years studying Mahler's conflicted feelings toward von Bülow, but it's really not necessary. It's only important to note that the resolution brought about by the latter's death allowed a dam to burst within Mahler's unconscious. All the musical ideas he had kept bottled up all at once poured forth in the form of this magnificent symphony. His final stanzas, taken from Klopstock, are one long hymn of affirmation.
The performance yesterday evening was very good, though it seemed to slip a bit at the end of the third movement. The finale, though, was as exciting as anyone could have hoped for, and the orchestra received a huge round of applause when it finished.
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