CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Staatskapelle Berlin

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 8:00 PM

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor
Eberhard Friedrich, Chorus Director
Dorothea Röschmann, Soprano
Michelle DeYoung, Mezzo-Soprano
Westminster Symphonic Choir
Joe Miller, Conductor

MAHLER Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection"

Perspectives: Daniel Barenboim

Sponsored by United Technologies Corporation

Program Notes:

I shall die in order to live!
Arise, yes arise,
You shall, my heart, in just a moment.
What you have borne
Will bear you to God!

Ecstatically intoned by the chorus, these optimistic lines of Mahler’s own poetry conclude his “Resurrection” Symphony, the second of his symphonic worlds. Its prolonged six-year genesis was perhaps the most crucial episode in his career: this would be the work that put Mahler the composer on the musical map of Europe.

Mahler was already establishing himself as a notable operatic conductor in Leipzig when he composed his First Symphony at white-hot speed during the early months of 1888. In January of that year he premiered his own completion of Carl Maria von Weber’s unfinished opera Die drei Pintos, which drew widespread acclaim. Weber’s sketches for the Pintos had been entrusted to him by the composer’s grandson, with whose wife, Marion, Mahler began having an affair. The First Symphony’s “Blumine” Andante (later suppressed) was Mahler’s birthday gift to Marion, and two other movements of it quote extensively from his Songs of a Wayfarer, a cycle of four lieder on his own texts about unrequited love and suicide. Not surprisingly, the conductor Bruno Walter, Mahler’s friend and disciple of many years, would later dub the First Symphony “Mahler’s Werther,” alluding to Goethe’s epistolary novel of a tragic love triangle.
Audio Audio Excerpt 1

Excerpt from Mahler Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection" (I. Allegro maestoso)

But even before he penned the triumphant conclusion of that work, Mahler had launched its dark counterpart in the grim C-minor funeral march that would at long last become the cornerstone of his Second Symphony. While working on it amid the floral trophies he had received at the Drei Pintos premiere, he was suddenly seized by a vision of himself dead on a bier, bedecked with the flowers and wreaths (which Marion von Weber had to remove for him). Mahler completed a draft of this movement and made a few sketches for the second; then he was stumped. A position in Prague took him away from Marion and Leipzig, and by September 1888 he was soliciting performances of the funeral march, now (or soon to be) entitled Todtenfeier (“Celebration of the Dead”), before he had any notion of how to finish the Second Symphony.

Mahler probably borrowed the Todtenfeier title from a fragmentary dramatic epic by the 19th-century Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, which appeared in 1887 in a German translation by Mahler’s longtime friend and mentor, the poet-philosopher Siegfried Lipiner (who also provided a lengthy critical essay). One portion of Mickiewicz’s “Todtenfeier” seems suspiciously close to Mahler’s own circumstances in 1888: it is the tale of a love triangle, based on Werther, whose principal characters are named Gustav and Marie; the tragic denouement is Gustav’s suicide, followed by the realization that he has been transformed into a wandering spirit condemned to hover in the vicinity of his beloved. As in the First Symphony, Mahler incorporates notable allusions to his Songs of a Wayfarer into Todtenfeier: both its main theme and the gnashingly dissonant fortissimo climax just before the recapitulation are derived from the explicitly suicidal third song of the Wayfarer cycle, “Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer” (“I Have a Burning Knife”). And he cites as well the Dies Irae chant from the Requiem Mass.

To be sure, no explicit documentation confirms that Mahler based his Todtenfeier movement upon the poem. However, since their student days both Mahler and Lipiner had embraced a view of tragic art and its redemptive power derived from the philosophical writings of Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche, according to which Promethean defiance leads toward self-transcendence and redemption. That is the overriding issue of the “Resurrection” Symphony as a whole, triumphantly celebrated in its conclusion. The musical rhetoric of Todtenfeier inaugurating this vast musical epic conveys far greater anguish than do Mahler’s veiled comments about it, such as his oft-cited program note of 1901: “We are standing at the coffin of a beloved person. His life, struggles, sorrows, and will pass once again, for the last time, before the eye of our soul ... What now? … Is all this only a desolate dream, or do this life and this death have some sense?—And we must answer this question if we are to go on living.”

By 1901, determined not to become mired in the polemical debates between Brahmsians and Wagnerians, Mahler had largely forsworn programmatic commentary on his music. He believed it would succeed without such verbal appendages, and history has certainly proven him right. Nevertheless, a full century later, scholars and critics have come to realize that if not taken too literally, Mahler’s metaphorical remarks about his early symphonies can enhance our access to the contexts surrounding them and the musical imagery within them.

The deaths of his parents and a sister, new conducting posts in Budapest and Hamburg, the failure of the First Symphony, and lack of inspiration brought Mahler’s creative work to a halt for four years following Todtenfeier. Then in January 1892 he turned again to Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“Youth’s Magic Horn”), the collection of folk poetry he first encountered at Marion von Weber’s: the extraordinary result was “Das himmlische Leben” (“Heavenly Life”), ultimately the finale of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, and the earliest of the childlike yet sophisticated orchestral songs that would find their way into his next three symphonies. He finally resumed work on the Second in summer 1893, completing the Andante moderato and Scherzo. Mahler subsequently told his confidante Natalie Bauer Lechner that both movements were “episodes from the life of the departed hero,” and that “the Andante concerns love.” The Scherzo, however, is based largely on another Wunderhorn song composed almost simultaneously with it, “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt” (“Saint Anthony of Padua’s Fish Sermon”). Mahler characterized the “Fish Sermon” as “my satire on mankind”: the swirling piscine congregation listens and swims away “not an iota wiser, even though the holy one has performed for them!” In transforming lied into Scherzo, Mahler opens with a solo for timpani, intensifies the song’s contrasts and orchestration, adds a rather idyllic trio section dominated by a solo trumpet, and near the end (a late modification in the compositional process) interpolates a “fearful scream” foreshadowing the onset of the finale. He summed up the results with a visual comparison: “when you look at a dance from afar through a window, but are unable to hear the music, the turning and commotion of the couple seem absurd and pointless ... Likewise, to someone who has lost himself and his happiness, the world seems crazy and confused.” (It is noteworthy that precisely such a scene occurs just prior to Gustav’s suicide in Mickiewicz’s “Todtenfeier.”)

Yet the problem of the finale remained. Mahler was struck by the famous “lightning bolt” of inspiration for it at the funeral ceremony—Todten-Feier, the bulletin reads—of the renowned conductor Hans von Bülow on March 29, 1894. Not coincidentally so, according to the psychoanalyst Theodor Reik: in 1891, hoping for a performance, Mahler had played his Todtenfeier movement for Bülow, who had harshly rejected it; Mahler’s creative logjam may have been broken by emotional triumph over the authoritarian master. In any case the sound of the boys’ choir singing Klopstock’s hymn “Auferstehen” (“Resurrection”) in Hamburg’s St. Michael’s Church ignited Mahler’s creativity, and he moved quickly. Adopting two stanzas of the Klopstock text, he wrote six more of his own, and determined that his earlier Wunderhorn song “Urlicht” (“Primal Light”) would serve marvelously as a miniature prelude to his emerging vision of Doomsday. By June 29, 1894, three weeks into his summer holiday, he had finished the draft of his extraordinary choral finale.

The events Mahler described in his commentaries or marked in the autograph score can be readily heard during the finale’s long instrumental exposition: the initial “scream of death,” the quaking of the earth on the day of the Last Judgment, the marching forth of peasants and kings, the Great Roll Call, and the bird of death, signaling the end of earthly existence. At the entrance of the chorus, Mahler explained, “now comes nothing of what all expected; no divine judgment, no blessed and no damned; no good, no evil ones, no judge! … softly and simply swells forth: ‘Arise, yes, arise …,’ to which the words themselves are sufficient commentary.” Or almost: this is no traditional Christian vision of resurrection, but one based on Faustian striving, self-transcendence, and belief in universal salvation—all of which had been tenets of Mahler’s and Lipiner’s worldview for nearly 20 years.

Suffering from a severe migraine, on December 13, 1895, the composer himself stoically conducted the premiere of the work, having hired the Berliner Philharmoniker at his own expense. The critics would prove almost unanimous in their scorn, but the audience’s enthusiasm grew steadily throughout the performance; there were tears and gasps at the hushed moment of the choral entrance, and heartfelt ovations following the jubilant conclusion. As Bruno Walter aptly observes, Mahler’s ascendancy as a composer can justly be dated from that evening; henceforth he and Richard Strauss would be regarded by connoisseurs as the leading modern Germanic composers.

—Stephen E. Hefling
© 2005 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor
With almost 450 years of tradition, Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest orchestras in the world. Originally founded in 1570 as a court orchestra by Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg, and at first solely dedicated to carrying out musical services for the court, the ensemble expanded its activities with the founding of the Royal Court Opera in 1742 by Frederick the Great. Ever since, the orchestra has been closely tied to Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Many important musicians have conducted the orchestra: Gaspare Spontini, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Felix von Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Franz Konwitschny, and Otmar Suitner are just a few of the conductors who have decidedly influenced the instrumental and interpretive culture of Staatskapelle Berlin. The works of Richard Wagner—who himself conducted the Königlich Preußische Hofkapelle in 1844 at the premiere of his Flying Dutchman and in 1876 during the preparations for the Berlin premiere of Tristan und Isolde—have represented a pillar of the repertoire of the Staatsoper and its orchestra for some time.

Since 1992, Daniel Barenboim has served as the orchestra’s General Music Director; in 2000 the orchestra named him “Conductor for Life.” He has led the orchestra throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, and China, as well as North and South America. Performances of Beethoven’s complete symphonies and piano concertos in Vienna, Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo; the symphony cycles of Schumann and Brahms, respectively; and the three-part performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Japan are some of the most outstanding events of recent years. As part of the Staatsoper’s Festtage 2007, the symphonies and orchestral songs of Gustav Mahler were performed under the batons of Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez at Berlin’s Philharmonie.

Staatskapelle Berlin was named Orchestra of the Year in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 by the journal Opernwelt; in 2003 the orchestra was awarded the Furtwängler Prize. A constantly growing number of recordings in both the operatic and symphonic repertoires document the work of the orchestra: The 2002 recording of Beethoven symphonies was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque, the 2003 recording of Wagner’s Tannhäuser was awarded a Grammy, and the 2007 live recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was awarded an Echo Prize.

In the Orchesterakademie, founded in 1997, young musicians gather professional experience in both opera and concert performance, mentored by members of the Staatskapelle. Furthermore, many Staatskapelle musicians volunteer at Musikkindergarten Berlin, an initiative founded by Daniel Barenboim. Staatskapelle members also dedicate themselves to working in chamber music formations, as well as in the ensemble Preußens Hofmusik, focusing on the Berlin music tradition from the 18th century. This rich musical activity can be experienced in several concert series held at the Staatsoper’s Apollo-Saal.


Pierre Boulez is one of the most important musical and intellectual figures of our time, currently serving as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus. He was named principal guest conductor of the CSO in March 1995, and served in that position until 2006 when he became Conductor Emeritus.

A native of Montbrison, France, Mr. Boulez pursued studies in piano, composition, and choral conducting at the Paris Conservatory. In 1953–1954, he founded the Concerts du Petit Marigny, a series dedicated to modern music, which later became the Domaine Musical. He subsequently was involved with musical analysis, and taught in Darmstadt, Germany, and at Basel University in Switzerland. In 1962–1963 he was a visiting professor at Harvard University, and in 1976 he became a professor at the Collège de France.

Mr. Boulez began his conducting career in 1958 with the Southwest Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. From 1969 to 1972 he was principal guest conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. In 1971 he became both chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic, a position he held until 1977.

Mr. Boulez’s difference of opinion about state intervention in the arts as espoused by André Malraux led him into voluntary exile for several years. He returned to France in 1974, when the government invited him to create and direct a music research center at the Centre Pompidou Centre. From the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM) sprang the Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the world’s finest contemporary music ensembles. In 1991, Mr. Boulez resigned as conductor of the ensemble while continuing as its president.

The compositions of Pierre Boulez are widely performed, including Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli, three piano sonatas, Eclat/Multiples, Le Visage nuptial, Répons, Notations, and … explosante-fixe … . He has also published five books about music. His awards include honorary doctorates from Leeds, Cambridge, Basel, and Oxford universities, among others; Commander of the British Empire; and Knight of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Mr. Boulez’s discography includes prize-winning recordings of Parsifal and Berg’s Lulu. He has 26 Grammy Awards to his credit.

Eberhard Friedrich, Chorus Director
After studying conducting with Helmuth Rilling in Frankfurt, Eberhard Friedrich was appointed chorus master of the Theater der Stadt Koblenz in 1986. He also served in the same capacity for the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden beginning in 1991. Mr. Friedrich led the Baden-Württemberg State Children’s Choir, and fulfilled guest engagements in Krakow, Talinn, and Vilnius, in addition to appearances at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, and with the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Bavarian Radio Chorus.

Mr. Friedrich has worked closely with the Bayreuth Festival since 1993; in 2000 he was appointed Chorus Master of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus. His association with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden began in 1995; after various guest appearances, he was appointed Chorus Master in 1998. Among his many accomplishments, Mr. Friedrich prepared the Staatsoper Chorus for a Grammy-winning recording of Tannhäuser, and for Peter Mussbach’s new production of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron during the 2004 Festtage—both under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. That year the Staatsoper Chorus was also named Chorus of the Year in a Opernwelt magazine critic’s poll.

Dorothea Röschmann, Soprano
Born in Flensburg, Germany, Dorothea Röschmann made a critically acclaimed debut at the 1995 Salzburg Festival as Susanna with Harnoncourt. She has since returned to the festival to sing Countess Almaviva, Ilia, Donna Elvira, Servilia, Nannetta, Pamina, and Vitellia, with such conductors as Abbado, Harding, Mackerras, and von Dohnányi.

At the Metropolitan Opera she has sung Susanna, Pamina, and Ilia with Levine. At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, her roles have included Pamina and Fiordiligi with Sir Colin Davis and Countess Almaviva with Pappano. At the Vienna Staatsoper she has appeared as Susanna with Ozawa. With the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, she has sung Zerlina, Susanna, Ännchen, Drusilla, Almirena, Marzelline, Anne Trulove, and Rodelinda. She is also closely associated with the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin, where her roles include Ännchen with Mehta; Nanetta with Abbado; Eva, Pamina, Fiordiligi, Susanna, Zerlina, Micäela, and Donna Elvira with Barenboim; and Elmira in Kaiser’s Croesus and the title role in Scarlatti’s Griselda, both with Jacobs. She has also appeared at Théâtre de la Monnaie (Brussels) as Norina and at the L’Opéra de Paris–Bastille as Pamina.

Engagements this season include a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Donna Elvira, her role debut as Elsa (Lohengrin) at the Deutsche Staatsoper, and a return to the Salzburg Festival as Countess Almaviva. Her future engagements include returns to the Opéra de Paris and to the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera).

Ms. Röschmann’s recent concert appearances include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; the Bayerischer Rundfunk and Concentus Musicus with Harnoncourt; the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Sawallisch; the London Symphony Orchestra with Pappano; the Berliner Philharmoniker with Rattle, Haitink, Harnoncourt, Jordan, and Barenboim; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Barenboim; the Munich Philharmonic with Levine; and The Cleveland Orchestra with Welser-Möst.

Her recital appearances include Antwerp, Lisbon, Madrid, Cologne, Brussels, New York, London, Vienna, and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), as well as the Edinburgh, Munich, and Schubertiade Schwarzenberg festivals.

Her recordings include Countess Almaviva with Harnoncourt; Pamina and Nannetta with Abbado; Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Pappano; Brahms’s Requiem with Rattle (winner of a Grammy and Gramophone Award); Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with Harding; Handel’s Neun deutsche Arien with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Messiah with McCreesh; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with David Daniels and Fabio Biondi; and a disc of Schumann songs with Ian Bostridge and Graham Johnson.

Michelle DeYoung, Mezzo-Soprano
Michelle DeYoung has established herself as one of the most exciting artists of her generation. She is in demand throughout the world, appearing regularly with the New York Philharmonic; the Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras; The Cleveland Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; MET Orchestra; Vienna Philharmonic; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Philharmonia Orchestra; Orchestre de Paris; Staatskapelle Berlin; and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In addition, she has performed at such prestigious festivals as Ravinia, Tanglewood, Saito Kinen, Edinburgh, and Lucerne.

Equally at home on the opera stage, Ms. DeYoung has won acclaim for her performances of Fricka, Sieglinde, and Waltraute in the Ring cycle; Kundry in Parsifal; Venus in Tannhäuser; Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde; Dido in Les Troyens, and Marguerite in La damnation de Faust. She has sung in the great opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Staatsoper Berlin, Opéra de Paris, and the Tokyo Opera. She most recently created the role of the Shaman in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera.

Ms. DeYoung’s most recent recording is Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink (CSO Resound). She has won Grammy Awards for her recordings of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Symphony No. 3 (SFS), and Berlioz’s Les Troyens (LSO Live!). Other albums in her growing discography include Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah” (Chandos), and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied (BMG) and Das Lied von der Erde (Reference Recordings). Her first solo disc was released on the EMI label.

This season, Ms. DeYoung’s many engagements have included her debut at the Los Angeles Opera as Fricka in Achim Freyer’s new productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and returns to the Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Musikverein in Vienna. This summer she makes her house and role debut as Eboli in Don Carlos at the Cincinnati Opera, and appears at the Ravinia, Aspen, and Grand Teton festivals; next season, she returns to the Los Angeles Opera for the complete Ring cycle and appears at Carnegie Hall with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Westminster Symphonic Choir
Joe Miller, Conductor
Composed of students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the Westminster Symphonic Choir has recorded and performed with major orchestras under virtually every internationally known conductor of the last 75 years. Recognized as one of the world’s leading choral ensembles, the choir has sung more than 300 performances with the New York Philharmonic alone.

The ensemble’s 2008–2009 season has included a series of performances with the New York Philharmonic: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, conducted by Gilbert Kaplan; Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Ton Koopman; Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, conducted by Kurt Masur; and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, conducted by Lorin Maazel.

Recent seasons have included performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, and Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Dresden Philharmonic, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

Each year 40 members of the Westminster Symphonic Choir are selected for the Westminster Choir, which has been the chorus-inresidence for the Spoleto Festival USA since 1977. Its most recent recording is Heaven to Earth, recorded with conductor laureate Joseph Flummerfelt and released on the AVIE label.

Westminster Choir College is a division of Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts. A professional college of music with a choral emphasis, Westminster Choir College prepares students at the undergraduate and graduate levels for careers in teaching, sacred music, and performance.


Joe Miller is conductor of two of America’s most renowned choral ensembles: the Westminster Choir and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. As director of choral activities at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey, he oversees an extensive choral program that includes eight ensembles.

In addition to preparing the Westminster Symphonic Choir for its orchestral performances in New York, his 2008–2009 season includes conducting the Illinois All-State Choir and the California All-State Choir. He will also be a presenter with Chorus America at the National Collegiate Choral Conductors (NCCO) Conference in Cincinnati and the headliner at the American Choral Directors Association’s Virginia Summer Conference.

Mr. Miller led the Westminster Choir on a concert tour of the Midwest in January, and they will travel to the Spoleto Festival USA in summer 2009 for their annual residency. He will return to Princeton to conduct the two-week Westminster Chamber Choir program and the Westminster Choral Festival in July.

Joe Miller earned a master’s degree and a doctorate degree in choral conducting from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and voice from the University of Tennessee.