Introduction Symphony No. 2

"Resurrection" (in German "Auferstehungs-symphonie").

The ink was barely dry on the score of his First Symphony in 1888 when Mahler began to toy with the idea of a new large symphonic work in c. The opening movement was soon completed and named Todtenfeier (Funeral Ceremony), but it ...
Read More

Manuscript Symphony No. 2
“I don’t think there has been a musical object of this importance on sale for almost 35 years, when Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring came on the market in 1982,” says the critic Norman Lebrecht, author of ...
Read More
Movement 1: Allegro maestoso: Mit durchaus ernstem und feierlichem Ausdruck

Based on the poem Todtenfeier by Adam Mickiewicz.

With deeply serious and solemn expression. With this funeral march and the eloquence of its thematic material, the power of its architectural structures, the emotional thrust of its inspiration and its concision of thought, Mahler assumes for the first ...
Read More

Movement 2: Andante moderato. Sehr gemächlich

Very leisurely. Never hurry. Two sections alternate in this idyllic movement, so different in style, atmosphere and scale from the first that Mahler specified their separation by a few minutes' pause. The first section is a graceful ländler in the major, the second a triplet theme in the minor ...
Read More

Movement 3: In ruhig fliessender Bewegung

Scherzo bases on Gustav Mahlers' Lied 6: Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 1892-1898). See Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901).

With a gently flowing movement. The tragic, or at least pessimistic, conception of this symphonic Scherzo seems worlds away from the humour of the Wunderhorn song in ...
Read More

Movement 4: "Urlicht". Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht

Primeval Light. Very solemn but simple (In the manner of a chorale). After the "tormenting" questions of the opening movement and the grotesque dance of the Scherzo, humankind is freed from uncertainty and doubt. The ...
Read More

Movement 5: "Aufersteh'n". Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend

At the same speed as the Scherzo. In a wild outburst. The Scherzo's "cry of despair" is recalled, then answered by a hesitant statement on the horns of the emerging "Resurrection" theme. There follows a "voice calling in the wilderness", again on the horns, but this time offstage, before ...
Read More

Orchestration Symphony No. 2

Woodwind

Todtenfeier