Mahler: Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”

He opened up the boundaries of sonata form—the three-part structure that had dominated symphonic first movements since the early 18th century—and expanded it to enormous, encyclopedic lengths. Like Beethoven before him, Mahler dispensed with the notion that a symphony should comprise instruments alone. No fewer than half of his symphonies are scored with voices in different combinations.

The logic of the genre is subverted, sometimes made senseless, as if the composer were trying to tell us that there was no way for him to express himself without making his music incomprehensible. Philosopher Theodor Adorno thought that it was all too much, and argued, in a devastating indictment, that Mahler’s symphonies were at once profoundly nostalgic and deeply nihilistic.

We can, however, look at works like his Second Symphony as a meditation on broader, universal matters of life and death—what Richard Taruskin terms an “eschatological” consideration of “human fate.” The “Resurrection” Symphony has points in common with a Requiem, and it brings together numerous quotations from composers of the 19th century, Beethoven included. The first movement derives from an abandoned single-movement composition called Todtenfeier (Funeral Rite). Of its re-conception, Mahler commented: “I have named the first movement ‘Funeral Rite,’ and, if you are curious, it is the hero of my First Symphony that I am burying here and whose life I am gathering up in a clear mirror, from a higher vantage point. At the same time it is the great question: Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is all this merely a great, horrible jest? We must resolve these questions somehow or other, if we are to go on living—indeed, even if we are only to go on dying!”

Answering these questions required Mahler to compose the largest symphony ever made in terms of forces, length, and harmonic boldness. Earsplitting chords of seven different notes are not uncommon, used to astonishing effect in the transition from the middle to the final section of the first movement and throughout the third movement—a musical adaptation of the 13th-century parable of Saint Anthony of Padua preaching to the fish. In Mahler’s setting, Padua’s sermon takes on transcendental force, but the fish, rather than being moved, swim away uncomprehending. The fourth movement is a setting of a text from a German folklore collection (adored by Mahler) called Das Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), where the alto soloist seeks release from the burdens of life. The fifth movement is blessedly brighter and proposes renewal—the “Resurrection” promised by the title.