“If what I heard was music—then I no longer understand music!” screeched conductor-pianist Hans von Bülow, hands clasped over his ears, in 1888. Maestro Bülow had just heard Gustav Mahler at the piano, eager to share his newest composition: Totenfeier (Funeral Rites). Bülow was downright disgusted. An esteemed orchestral conductor and music interpreter in the Romantic era, Bülow influenced European musical life quite heavily; his opinion mattered. Bülow was also an educator who took great pride in fostering burgeoning conductors, one of which was his star pupil Gustav Mahler. 

Bülow was a major proponent of Mahler-the-conductor but absolutely abhorred Mahler-the-composer; Mahler was so distraught by his mentor’s reaction to Totenfeier that he lamented to another composer, Richard Strauss, that perhaps composition was not in his future. Maestro Bülow would further disintegrate Mahler’s confidence as a composer, arguing that such unconventional melodies and horrid dissonances made Richard Wagner’s disgraceful prattle sound as pure and clean as the music of Franz Joseph Haydn. Much to Bülow’s chagrin, Mahler-the-composer persisted. 

At the time of his meeting with Bülow, Gustav Mahler had only recently completed his first symphony—Titan was its own huge orchestral undertaking—and envisioned Totenfeier as an extension of that work. With his narrative hero of Titan dead (spoiler alert), the composer considered Totenfeier to be the soundtrack of an imagined funeral. Waxing prophetic on themes of death, Mahler decided these ideas were too much for a standalone work and from his tone poem Totenfeier, Symphony No. 2 was born. 

Just as Bülow despised his compositional beginnings, Gustav Mahler’s music has not been universally beloved. In the 1930s, the Nazi regime banned Mahler’s works entirely, classifying them as “Degenerate Music” due to his Jewish heritage. Infamously derisive conductor Arturo Toscanini called Mahler symphonies “tedious.” In a 1938 aptly-titled article, “Wormy Mahler,” The New York Times argued his “brooding melancholy” brought listeners down, and that Mahler “could see the worm in every apple.” Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called Mahler’s music worthless, though he acquiesced that it took “very rare talent” to produce. Only posthumously would Mahler’s music garner any real appreciation. The composer often exclaimed, surely with a shaking fist, “My time will come!” A century later, it did. Today the composer is venerated to such an extent that “Mahlerian” has become its own adjective. 

Mahler only lived fifty-one years, but his lifetime occurred while art and culture was changing rapidly. Frederick Nietzsche’s philosophical fiction Also sprach Zarathustra entered the cultural zeitgeist in 1883, spurring debate on death and eternity. Ten years later, Edvard Much’s The Scream put existential dread on canvas. Sigmeund Freud altered psychology forever in 1899; his newfangled dream theory opened conversations into the subconscious mind. Abert Einstein’s work on relativity was changing perception and reality, both literally and psychologically. In Mahler’s eyes, orchestral music was just as due for philosophizing; his music reflects these changes and cultural idiosyncrasies. Before these societal changes took heed, Richard Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk aimed to unite all art forms: music braided into poetry, dance, and drama in an effort to create a “universal artwork.” Wagner’s Ring cycle (1848-1874) was the closest expression of this ideal to grace the musical landscape. Mahler, himself a Wagnerite, expanded on this—he did not aim to connect all art forms to one another, but instead aimed to connect music to all aspects of the human condition. He used the orchestra as a mirror with which to reflect all aspects of modern humanity; as a result, under Gustav Mahler’s pen, music steps into a more metaphysical territory. In his Resurrection Symphony, Mahler sonically poses two questions: “what is the meaning of life?” and “what happens after death?”

Mahler’s colossal forces (both orchestrally and philosophically) can be daunting, overwhelming. With so much to hear—the massive ensemble, unrelenting notes, constant melodic evolution—the first experience of a Mahler symphony can be a bit of an aural Rorschach test. Moreover, Mahler’s music will change upon subsequent hearings. Just as personal experiences change our perception of life, those same experiences will likely influence our perception of the music. In many ways, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is not just a work to hear, but an experience to be lived. Perhaps this is by design; the composer was illusive in his own life. Mahler was not quite secretive—he was a storied letter writer and became quite the public figure—but he pressed his audiences to have their own interpretations of his music. Although, upon request, he wrote program notes to his works, he often rescinded or altered them after performances. Mahler vehemently refused to explain his music to conductors and musicians, pointing out that the task of performing was to explore, musically, all that he’d offered. In black and white, on five lines and four spaces, Gustav Mahler challenges both the performer and listener from a deeply philosophical perspective. 

Mahler was decisive and informed on the podium—his musicians would argue too much so, a dogged perfectionist—but as a composer he considered all options quite carefully. He wrote slowly, conscientiously selecting musical elements that would express his deepest thoughts as perfectly as possible. He took seven years to write his Resurrection and revised it for another eight. 

Symphony No. 2 was delayed significantly by the deaths of close family members during his compositional process, but ultimately it was Hans von Bülow’s funeral that was the catalyst for the symphony’s completion. Mahler was no stranger to employing voices in orchestral settings—his Das Knaben Wunderhorn made this clear in 1892—but he did not want a choral ending of a symphony to be taken as homage to Beethoven’s Ninth. Instead, Mahler differentiated by using a solo voice in the penultimate movement, Ulricht. He postulated on how to employ a full chorus without resurrecting Beethoven, though, and was ultimately struck “like a thunderbolt” at Bülow’s funeral in 1893. At his mentor’s burial, a children’s chorus sang Fredrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s Die Auferstehung. Mahler called this “the jolt of inspiration all artists yearn for,” and worked on his own choral ending with newfound resolve. He utilized original stanzas of Klopstock’s text and additionally wrote his own accompanying text to complete the vocal material. The resulting effect of the choral entrance—marked triple-piano, “without standing out in the slightest” in the score; conductors debate if choristers should remain seated rather than risk disturbing the atmosphere—is otherworldly, ethereal, and chilling. 

The first and last movements are the heftiest of the five. While the first movement is Totenfeier’s funeral procession, the fifth movement is Mahler’s depiction of death and its afterlife. Movements II, III, and (arguably) IV were conceived as intermezzi: shorter, narrative depictions that support the thematic material of I and V. 

In the first movement, low strings tear through a distressing sixteenth note figure—Fate personified—that instantly grips the listener. An austere opening grows to include more of the massive orchestra, slowly growing into a frightful, unrelenting dirge. While his first major theme takes hints from the Dies irae, albeit modified, Mahler’s second theme is uninhibited and hopeful. His constant melodic evolution is at play, and in the snap of his fingers Mahler presents a third, triumphant theme in the trumpets—this time a brief but nonetheless heroic fanfare in E-flat major (perhaps this, rather than the choral ending, is Mahler’s nod to Beethoven). 

The first movement is long enough—just over twenty minutes—that it requires a substantial pause between it and the entirely different second movement. Mahler calls for a whopping five-minute break, his directions printed clearly in the score, though he is rarely obeyed on this matter. A charming vignette of a life well-lived illustrates the second movement. Mahler uses a Ländler—a folk dance—instead of a minuet to imbibe the work with a more-overt bit of Austrian flair. The simple scene acts as a pleasant memory dancing through the mind of our deceased hero. 

In stark contrast, the third movement is a grotesque and dizzying Scherzo. This section begins with timpani strikes that instantly move the attention away from the preceding dance and begin Mahler’s meditation on the futility of life. Mahler remembers his own family in this movement, subtly quoting Jewish folk melodies and embedding them into the recurrent theme passed between the klezmer-esque clarinets and strings. 

Subtitled “Primeval Light” by the composer, the fourth movement emits an ancient, otherworldly peace. The solo voice communicates the acceptance of death, but not out of a place of fear nor regret. The text is bathed in hope under Mahler’s guidance, indicating that death in this penultimate movement may finally move towards resurrection in the upcoming Finale. 

“Oh little red rose!” sings the alto, “Man lies in greatest need! One lies in greatest pain!” While the subject matter could easily be set in a brooding atmosphere, Mahler juxtaposes these words with a sublime orchestral landscape. A singular, perhaps macabre, violin eventually converses with the vocal line, illustrating the conflict between the angelic voice and its path to eternity. Begging the Heavens for a small light to guide her, our alto soloist is presented with “eternal, blissful life” supported by triple-piano, muted strings. Fittingly, Mahler indicates in the string parts ganzlicht ersterbend: completely dying. 

The calm beauty of the fourth movement is instantly obliterated by cymbal crashes and anguished brass. Spanning thirty-two of Resurrection’s eighty minutes, the final movement is the longest and most complex of the five. Split into two larger sections, Mahler’s final movement begins with a cinematic, if not Faustian, descent into Death’s unknown. Pizzicato strings march through the abyss while entrances of solo winds seem to remind the listener we are indeed alone in death. Constantly questioning, Mahler’s agitated middle section begins to illustrate his initial quandary “what happens after death?” His response is a frightful, lonesome journey. The eternal quest in seeking the meaning of life—the very act of seeking is, perhaps, Mahler’s answer—recalls the legacies which lie in the memories of people closest to us. Resurrection is not a physical reappearance of life, but veneration of legacy. 

After the orchestra’s descent into the underworld, the chorus finally enters. Eternal life, stillness, and reverence emit from the choral loft with celestial focus, presenting the listener with a true image of Mahler’s view on resurrection. “Arise, yes, you will arise from the dead,” the a capella chorus sings. This pianissimo entrance is in great contrast to the last measures of the symphony, further illustrating the emotive breadth of the human condition. The final moments of the massive Resurrection Symphony are pure choral-orchestral ecstasy accompanied by rafter-shaking organ chords and ringing chimes, conjuring a cathedral celebration of life. The final cadence of No. 2 prevails over terse chromaticism, further painting Mahler’s original text, “What you have conquered will bear you to God.” The final moments onstage are nothing short of life-altering harmonic resolution.  All that we find in life, we find in Mahler’s Resurrection.

About the annotator: Cynthia Stacy is an orchestra librarian with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and also maintains the ISO archive. Ms. Stacy studied bassoon at DePaul University and the New England Conservatory of Music, where her academic writing focused on Russian orchestral music.