European Doctors' Orchestra 26 November 2017
Ulster Hall, Belfast
European Doctors’ Orchestra
Irish Doctors’ Choir
Conductor: Timothy Redmond
Soprano: Orla Boylan
Mezzo-soprano: Doreen Curran
Chorus Master: Brian Mackay
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) - Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Resurrection (1888-1894)
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Allegro maestoso
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Andante moderato
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In ruhig fliessender Bewegung
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Urlicht
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In Tempo des Scherzos
Background
Standing on the cusp of old and new worlds, Gustav Mahler’s music marks a monumental cultural strophe between the decadence of Austro-German Romanticsm and the advent of Modernism. As a student, he was fascinated in the writings of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and in sharing fin-de-siècle Vienna with the likes of Klimt, Freud, Schoenberg and Witgenstein, he was at the forefront of a creative outpouring without which the novel sound worlds of the twentieth century could not have existed. For such a progressive artist, though, Mahler’s influences lie more that most in his childhood. Born in rural Bohemia to ill-matched parents as the second of fourteen children (8 of whom did not survive to adulthood), he was deeply troubled by early experiences of domestic strife. Freud later attributed Mahler’s sense of sardonic irony to an experience in which the young Gustav dashed from the family home amid a parental quarrel to be faced with a bathetically jolly hurdy-gurdy in the street. He was so fascinated by the marching bands of the military garrison in Iglau that, as a four year old, he was found by neighbours wearing little more than his miniature accordion, having given pursuit to the band. Later in life, his obsession with his own mortality was such that in the opening cello and horn figure of the ninth symphony he literally notated the heart murmur (mitral stenosis) which predisposed him to his death from Streptococcus viridians endocarditis. His mature works are thus permeated with themes of nature, the deaths of children, militarism, the sublime and the ridiculous, and above all mortality, brought together by his philosophy that a symphony must be ‘like the world – it must embrace everything’, as he wrote to Sibelius.
Composition
Mahler came to describe his first symphony in terms of a powerful hero, whose life and struggles we witness before his eventual downfall. The hero’s ‘true, higher redemption,’ he told his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner, ‘comes only in the second symphony.’ The genesis of this second symphony lies in the tone poem Totenfeier (‘funeral rites’), inspired by a post-concert hallucination of his own death. Following a commission in 1888 to complete an unfinished Weber opera, Mahler lay in his chambers surrounded by flowers and was struck by a vision in which he lay on his funeral bier rather than his bed, once again preoccupied with his own mortality. `
Debate persists as to whether the funeral march was originally intended as the opening paragraph in some greater work, for the idea for a symphony lay dormant for five years. Mahler spent the summer of 1893 in his composing hut on the shores of the Attersee, where he wrote out the Scherzo on a single balmy July day, initially scored for voice and piano as the Wunderhorn song St Anthony’s Sermon to the Fishes. He completed the Andante, and later added another Wunderhorn song (Urlicht, or ‘Primal light’), as the fourth movement.
In seeking a choral finale, Mahler joined a long tradition of composers troubled by the long shadows of Beethoven, whose ninth symphony weighed heavily on his mind. Inspiration came the following March, at the memorial service of his friend Hans von Bülow, the revered pianist and conductor whose encouragement had so heavily influenced Brahms and Wagner. As respective directors of the opera and symphony orchestra in Hamburg, the two enjoyed a close relationship. Although von Bülow had previously listened to Totenfeier with his hands over his ears, muttering that “Compared with this, Tristan [und Isolde] is a Haydn symphony”, his support for Mahler never waned. Hearing the choir singing Klopstock’s Auferstehen (Resurrection) chorale from the choir loft at the memorial, Mahler was struck “like a flash of lightning” and noted the text and music. He elaborated the text and music, and completed his symphony in the space of three weeks later that summer.
Mahler provided three different programmes for his new symphony, though he later came to reject these. Aside from some subtle differences, the general theme is of a hero whose funeral, life and transcendence into resurrection we witness. Writing variously to Bauer-Lechner, King Albert of Saxony and to the composer and critic Max Marschalk, Mahler wrote that the funeral is for “the hero of my first symphony, whom I bear to the grave”:
“We stand by the coffin of a well-loved person. His life, struggles, passions and aspirations once more, for the last time, pass before our mind’s eye. And now in this moment of gravity and emotion which convulses our deepest being... our heart is gripped by a dreadfully serious voice... What now? What is this life – and this death? Do we have an existence beyond it? Is all this only a confused dream, or do life and this death have a meaning?”
Mahler described the Andante as recalling a happy moment in the life of the deceased, and the Scherzo as witnessing a dance as if through a window, as if unable to hear the music. The dance seems surreal in the absence of any way to make sense of it, and it dissolves into chaos.
Mahler was more explicit in describing the final movement:
“Once more we must confront terrifying questions... The voice of the Caller is heard. The end of every living thing has come, the last judgment is at hand and the horror of the day of days has come upon us. The earth trembles, the graves burst open, the dead arise and march forth in endless procession. The great and the small of this earth, the kings and the beggars, the just and the godless all press forward. The cry for mercy and forgiveness sounds fearful in our ears. The wailing becomes gradually more terrible. Our senses desert us, all consciousness dies as the Eternal Judge approaches. The last trump sounds; the trumpets of the Apocalypse ring out. In the eerie silence that follows, we can just barely make out a distant nightingale, a last tremulous echo of earthly life. The gentle sound of a chorus of saints and heavenly hosts is then heard: “Rise again, yes, rise again you will!” Then God in all His glory comes into sight. A wondrous light strikes us to the heart...
The Text
Fourth Movement: Urlight (Primal Light)
From Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Mezzo-soprano
O Röschen rot!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Not!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!
Je lieber möcht' ich im Himmel sein.
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg:
Da kam ein Engelein und wollt’ mich abweisen.
Ach nein! Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!
Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott!
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
Wird leuchten mir bis in das ewig selig Leben!
O little red rose!
Man lies in greatest need!
Man lies in greatest pain!
Much rather would I be in Heaven!
There I came onto a broad path:
And an angel came and wanted to tun me away.
Ah no! I would not be turned away!
I am from God and shall return to God!
The dear God will grant me a little light,
Will light me into eternal blissful life!
Fifth Movement: Die Auferstehung (Resurrection)
From Friedrich Klopstock, adapted by Gustav Mahler
Chorus
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
Wirst du, Mein Staub,
Nach kurzer Ruh'!
Unsterblich Leben! Unsterblich Leben
wird der dich rief dir geben!
Wieder aufzublüh'n wirst du gesät!
Der Herr der Ernte geht
und sammelt Garben
uns ein, die starben!
Mezzo-soprano
O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube:
Es geht dir nichts verloren!
Dein ist, ja dein, was du gesehnt!
Dein, was du geliebt,
Was du gestritten!
Soprano
O glaube
Du wardst nicht umsonst geboren!
Hast nicht umsonst gelebt, gelitten!
Chorus and mezzo-soprano
Was entstanden ist
Das muss vergehen!
Was vergangen, auferstehen!
Hör' auf zu beben!
Bereite dich zu leben!
Soprano and mezzo-soprano
O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!
Dir bin ich entrungen!
O Tod! Du Allbezwinger!
Nun bist du bezwungen!
Soprano, mezzo-soprano and chorus
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen,
In heißem Liebesstreben,
Werd' ich entschweben
Zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug' gedrungen!
Sterben werd' ich, um zu leben!
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you my dust,
After brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
Will He, who called you, give you.
To bloom again were you sown!
The Lord of the harvest goes
And gathers like sheaves,
Us, who died.
O believe, my heart, o believe:
Nothing to you is lost!
Yours is, yes yours, is what you longed for
Yours, what you loved
What you fought for!
O believe,
You were not born in vain!
Have not lived in vain, nor suffered!
All that has come into being
Must perish!
All that has perished, must rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!
O Pain, piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, conqueror of all things,
Now, are you conquered!
With wings I have won for myself,
In love’s fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Die shall I in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That which you conquered
To God shall it carry you!
© Rohan Shotton 2019. Programme notes may not be reproduced or edited without permission. Please contact me if you would like to use these notes.