Some recommended recordings: Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic, either on Columbia from the 1960s (Lee Venora and Jennie Tourel) or his later Deutsche Grammophon recording from the 1980s (Christa Ludwig and Barbara Hendricks), Zubin Mehta with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Christa Ludwig and Ileana Contrubas) re-released on Decca Legends is unexpectedly great, and Sir Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Dame Janet Baker and Arleen Augér) is very good too. Not available on CD or streaming is Gustavo Dudamel performing with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra (Miah Persson and Anna Larsson) at BBC Proms in 2011. I’ve only seen a video recording of it on YouTube. Not only is the whole performance electrifying and mesmerizing, but at the end! – I won’t give it away, but what happens at the end of the performance after the music stops sums up why this might be the greatest recording of the symphony. Or at least proves why a live viewing of the Resurrection Symphony might be the best way to experience it.
Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Auferstehung” – The Resurrection Symphony! Such an evolutionary leap from his First Symphony! You can see it right away in its complexity and length. Maybe Mahler was being conservative and held back in his First. Maybe his composing skills improved. EIther way, it is a magnitude of scale change from the previous symphony. The addition of vocal and choral components shows him fully accepting (seizing?) the legacy symphonic mantle of Beethoven. And to do it in his second symphony! Was there another choral symphony of note after Beethoven’s Ninth up until this point? (I can’t think of any – let me know in the comments if you can name one!) Not only a choral symphony but one with a full solo vocalist movement too! As he was composing, Mahler knew he wanted a grand vocal finale but couldn’t figure out the subject matter. Conductor Hans von Bülow, who was a strong supporter of Mahler in the early days, helped give him confidence as he was sketching out the first movement of this symphony. He was ill for some time and died in 1894 while trying to recuperate from his long term illness. von Bülow’s funeral provided Mahler the inspiration how to conclude the symphony, upon hearing Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's poem Die Auferstehung “The Resurrection” during the services. He wrote in a letter, "It struck me like lightning, this thing and everything was revealed to me clear and plain!” On that note, let’s begin our symphonic journey!
First Movement: This is actually in miniature sonata form itself. Why? Because it was originally composed as a 1888 standalone single-movement tone poem called Totenfeier - “Funeral Rites”. It’s as long as the middle three movements combined. If the hero lived or triumphed at the end of the First Symphony, here he is clearly dead – the mourners are burying our hero. This dour mood is very clear from the swell of strings and double bass melody. Imagine the movement as the funeral march, the hero’s burial, the mourners’ remembrances of pain and (briefly) joy, and numerous returns to the funereal mood that permeates everything in the music. If the hero triumphed in the last symphony, no one got the memo here! After the initial march, the music moves on to a nostalgic string motif with melancholy in it, and we now start to hear hints of the heavenly stings to come later in the last movement, but interspersed with that funeral march again. Really, the movement cannot escape the gravity of the funeral march motif and its various forms; the symphony keeps getting drawn back into it. Like a cloud hanging over the mourning party when they talk about their memories of the dearly departed. The march motif finally comes to a recapitulation with a new “valiant/heroic” theme, but then the music returns to the funeral march. There is a return of the opening march motif, then the heavenly/nostalgic stings return with more development. This leads us to a dwindling/receding “death knell” decrescendo marking the end of the movement with a slightly frenzied flourish before it comes to a close. Mahler originally had in his notes to take a five minute break after this movement before starting the second.
Second Movement: Again, Mahler gives us a second movement in the form of a ländler (that Germanic dance form) but this time, it is slower and presented more stately than in his First Symphony. It is fine, though it has grown on me. Narratively, the symphony now switches over to follow the Hero from his perspective. Maybe he is between earthly death and the next stage, reflecting back on memories of his life? He remembers his pleasant childhood, though some darker, stormier passages interject as the idyllic motif progresses. These dark passages hint that not everything is perfect in childhood. Or is it painful nostalgia from the perspective of the hero? The movement is only slightly cynical, not like the full blown sarcasm of his later work.
Third Movement: We have an actual scherzo finally in this movement! We hear a fluid-like string motif that evokes fish swimming. It is the St Anthony of Padua story, his attempt to teach the fish to be virtuous. A rousing brass motif is interspersed into the fish string motif, which we can hear is a setting of Mahler’s lied "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. The brass comes back but it’s contorted and the movement ends in a “death shriek” or “cry of despair” and then the music becomes quiet. However, we start to hear a flute, trumpet, and string section that has a different atmosphere and seems to foreshadow something else (spoiler alert: it’s a nascent version of the Resurrection theme from the final movement.) The harder edge parts of the movement channel the hero despairing over the futility and meaningless of life, as well as his later hardship and confusion, post childhood. The futility is mirrored by the story of St. Anthony, who preaches but all the fish ignore him and his teachings after the service ends – just like his parishioners. The story from the original lied:
St. Anthony arrives for his sermon
and finds the church empty.
He goes to the rivers
to preach to the fishes;
They flick their tails,
which glisten in the sunshine.
The carp with roe
have all come here,
their mouths wide open,
listening attentively.
No sermon ever
pleased the carp so.
Sharp-mouthed pike
that are always fighting
have come here, swimming hurriedly
to hear this pious one;
No sermon ever
pleased the pike so.
Also, those fantastic creatures
that are always fasting -
the stockfish, I mean -
they also appeared for the sermon;
No sermon ever
pleased the stockfish so.
Good eels and sturgeons,
that are dined upon by the nobility -
even they took the trouble
to hear the sermon:
No sermon ever
pleased the eels so.
Crabs too, and turtles,
usually such slowpokes,
rise quickly from the bottom,
to hear this voice.
No sermon ever
pleased the crabs so.
Big fish, little fish,
noble fish, common fish,
all lift their heads
like sentient creatures:
At God's behest
they listen to the sermon.
The sermon having ended,
each turns himself around;
the pikes remain thieves,
the eels, great lovers.
The sermon has pleased them,
but they remain the same as before.
The crabs still walk backwards,
the stockfish stay rotund,
the carps still stuff themselves,
the sermon is forgotten!
The sermon has pleased them,
but they remain the same as before.
Fourth Movement: “Urlicht” is another Wunderhorn song, “Primal Light” sung by an alto. The hero finally has a breakthrough about the meaning of his existence, which will be more fully explored in the finale. The trumpet canon at the start is funereal and yet beautiful. The turning point in the symphony starts with this little lied. The hero has finally come to a realization about life and his purpose and place in the world and what he lived through. The music changes in the middle of the movement when the lyrics reach the second stanza, reflecting his change mentally from only recognizing his low point to realizing the answer to “it” all:
O little red rose,
Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain.
How I would rather be in heaven.
There I came upon a broad Path,
When I came upon an Angel who wanted to turn me away.
But no, I will not let myself be turned away!
I am from God, and shall return to God,
The loving God will grant me a little light,
Which will lighten my way up to eternal, blessed life!
But the final movement is needed to bring it all home.
Fifth Movement: An over half-hour long sonata form, the movement is instrumental at first and then breaks into our choral finale. It’s almost half the length of the symphony (33 out of 70 something minutes!) The movement opens with our “death shriek” (as we heard in the third movement) and now we hear a nod to the later Resurrection theme, the most fully formed version of it yet, and you realize you’ve heard embryonic snippets of it before throughout the symphony! The music expresses that new atmosphere that was hinted at in the third movement: as the title of the symphony implies, now the Hero has to find final resolution in the afterlife, beyond the worldly existence. We hear a new “hero” theme that starts out really softly and takes a long time to build and develop before bursting out. When it does, that’s what I am talking about: how Mahler’s development skills have leaped by a magnitude of scale since his first symphony. The hero theme as it becomes fully developed, it’s amazing – the music is so emotive and in some respects, visual too. Is it a battle charge by the hero which eventually flounders? (I swear you can hear Dmitri Shostakovich give a nod to this hero section in the last movement of his Fourth Symphony, except it’s dripping with sarcasm the whole time and does not resolve itself in any uplifting way). What the listener doesn’t realize is that Mahler is giving us a preview of the end of the movement and the finale to the symphony. But the way he transforms the motives is so masterful, that you don’t realize it’s happening as you listen. With short hiccup, a fast paced sinister sounding brass development follows. As Mahler noted, this is the march of the dead coming out of their graves, the apocalypse has begun. The development of motives here and foreshadowing of future musical ideas is wonderful.
But then the music changes to something more triumphant, some sort of victory over the zombie dead that have been reanimated. The music now becomes quieter, focusing on strings and we hear the “dead of death” with a floating flute line. Then the choral section begins very quietly, with their message clear:
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my dust, after a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
He who called you, will grant it to you.
You are sown to bloom again!
The lord of the harvest goes
And gathers sheaves,
Us, who have died.
As this continues, the most fully recognizable appearance of the Resurrection theme comes on, it is sweetly played by strings – in my opinion, this is one of the most poignant moments in classical music. There is something so fragile and precious in how it is played. Then enter the Soprano and Alto – Mahler has now discarded Klopstock’s lyrics and written his own:
O believe, my heart, O believe:
Nothing is lost to you!
Yours, yes yours, is what you desired
Yours, what you have loved for
What you have fought for!
O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not lived for nothing,
Nor suffered!
What was created
Must perish;
What has perished, rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!
The chorus with the soloists builds and there is great interplay, interjecting each other, announcing their victory:
O Pain, you piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, you conqueror of all things,
Now, are you conquered!
With wings which I have won for myself,
In love's fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Then the chorus and soloist keep repeating the epiphany, realization, answer that our hero finally gets:
I shall die in order to live.
The end is wonderful, it bursts through, the audience finally understand what all this motive development has been traveling towards, the final transformation of the theme bursts forth rapturously: the symphony is finally explaining the hero’s mystery, how everything will be made right in the end:
Rise again, yes, you will rise again,
my heart, in an instant
What you have suffered,
shall carry you to God!
The score tells everyone to play and sing at the maximum: the organ finally enters at full volume, church bells ring out. Once the singing ends, the orchestra continues to take us higher and higher and the audience gets a glimpse of the heavenly realm as the hero is finally at peace and can enter in full glory. The divine light is so bright it obscures our view of his final entry and acceptance by God.
Whether or not you listened to the Resurrection symphony before, you have to watch the Dudamel BBC Proms performance. This performance is what got me into recognizing Dudamel as a serious conductor and a great Mahler interpreter. It also got me to appreciate the symphony more, especially the singing because the subtitle translations here are very good (though I make my own minor corrections to the translations of phrases like “einem nu” and other tweaks). To tell you how great this performance is SPOILER ALERT members of the orchestra begin crying, Anna Larsson turns away to hide her crying, there is at least five minutes of standing applause from a wild audience that continues over the end credits and the BBC announcer needs to cut the broadcast while they still continue to cheer and applaud.
Thank you again for making it through my commentary! Next week is Mahler’s Third Symphony - the longest in the standard repertoire. I promise the posts will get shorter after that. Give it a spin ahead of next Wednesday. Until then!
And links to my preferred recordings:
Leonard Bernstein, NYP with Lee Venora and Jennie Tourel, Columbia Records, (1960s)
Leonard Bernstein, NYP with Christa Ludwig and Barbara Hendricks, Deutsche Grammophon, (1980s)
Zubin Mehta, VPO with Christa Ludwig and Ileana Contrubas, Decca
Simon Rattle, BSO with Dame Janet Baker and Arleen Augér, EMI
Copyright © 2023 Jared Pilosio. All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment