Gustav Mahler, in his 20s and 30s, was a busy man on the rise. He spent most of his time building his career as a conductor, chiefly of opera, meteorically ascending from provincial theaters to the most prized position in Europe: music director of the Vienna Court Opera. This pace left little time for composing, most of which he did during the summer. At first he was conflicted about what kind of music to write, and concentrated on songs and program music. What we now know as his Symphony No. 1 premiered as a “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts,” and for some time he planned a sequel with a massive single-movement piece called Todtenfeier—Funeral Rite—which became the first movement of the Second Symphony we hear tonight.

It is remarkable that the Second Symphony, composed over the span of nearly seven years (the longest gestation for any of Mahler’s works), should emerge as one of his most powerful and seemingly unified compositions. When he began it in 1888, at age 28, he had no idea where it would go, and the process of discovery—and self-discovery—addressed issues no less weighty than the meaning of life and death. How to conclude the work was a particular problem, and the solution, when it came, proved a revelation: a choral finale setting a “Resurrection” poem by 18th-century German writer Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, which Mahler adapted with his own words.

What became known as the “Resurrection” Symphony is one of the longest, most ambitious, and profoundly moving orchestral works ever composed, and its unusual impact and message have been celebrated ever since Mahler conducted the premiere in Berlin in 1895.