Have you ever wondered what conductors get up to once they’ve left the podium, taken their final bow and gone backstage for good? How do they feel after a successful performance, when the curtain is drawn but the adrenaline still runs high and the music echoes inside?

Sometime in the late 1880s, a rising star of the conducting world did something seriously weird… Which would eventually lead him to produce one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.

Today, let’s explore Gustav Mahler Symphony N° 2 – inside the music, behind the notes.

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Gustav Mahler had had a great night. After bringing back to life Carl Maria von Weber’s unfinished opera Die Drei Pintos and acing its premiere, the young assistant conductor could start dreaming bigger. Much bigger.

Yet that evening, when he closed the door of his Leipzig apartment, he wasn’t celebrating or gushing over his bright future. Suddenly, it was death he was thinking about. Cold, lonely, inescapable death.

And since Mahler isn’t one to do things by halves, he decided to fully embrace that scary thought and immerse himself in it. Next thing you know, there he was, lying still, the flowers he had been gifted at the concert thrust onto the bed, candles burning all around the room as if for a wake.

Next, next thing you know… He had turned that peculiar experience into a fully-fledged composition. A tone poem called - you may have guessed - Todtenfeier, ie. Funeral Rites. And… it just bombed. No one liked it much. In fact, Mahler’s mentor Hans von Bülow, who was one of the most distinguished conductors of the day, said he hated it.

That was not the end of the story though. Rather, it was the start of a five-year-long artistic and existential journey for Gustav Mahler. A coming-of-age really, which would not only turn him into a mature composer but also shape his life philosophy.

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Now, how do we get from the somewhat failed Funeral Rites to the brilliant Second Symphony exactly?

For one, Mahler didn’t take no for an answer. Though the Rites were not met enthusiastically, he never threw them away for he knew he was on to something. Just like wine, perhaps they simply needed to age a little in order to reveal their full potential. And so they did - just like the young composer. Over the five years that followed his strange, staged home «funeral», Mahler attended real funerals. Actual death, loss, suffering, grief. Experiences that don’t leave one undamaged.

At the same time, he started reading voraciously. Poetry became an outlet, a way to articulate the complex emotions he was wrestling with. And it is precisely there – at the junction of life experience and poetic inspiration, on the rubble of the discarded yet not completely forgotten Funeral Rites – that the Symphony N° 2 started to take shape.

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Now, it’s time we dived into the score, don’t you think?

Let’s start at the very beginning. As those of you already familiar with Mahler might know, he was a stickler for tempo markings. He didn’t settle for the straightforward Allegro or the good-old Andante: his were written in German and always very detailed. In the case of the Second Symphony’s first movement, they give us a clear indication of the composer’s meaning: Mit durchaus ernstem und feierlichem Ausdruck (With a thoroughly serious and solemn expression). After all, one would expect no less at a funeral…

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Although Mahler usually tried to resist writing programmes to «explain» his music, here the intention is clear: «We stand by the coffin of a well-loved person», he writes, «and now in this moment of gravity and emotion… our heart is gripped by a dreadfully serious voice… What now? What is this life – and this death?»

Grief encounters anxiety, exterior silence meets inner turmoil. And what better way to represent these contrasting emotions than the Sonata Form – classical composers’ go-to roadmap for first movements. Without going into too much detail, this is just a clever way of introducing various musical ideas, of mixing, twisting and amplifying them before eventually going back to the introduction. Let’s hear some of them…

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Phew. Intense stuff. After which follows… silence. Literally: Mahler himself demanded a 5-minute pause before tackling the symphony’s second movement. There are surely practical reasons for that (like the need for musicians and the audience to rest after a whopping 20+ minutes). But it’s also a bold statement from the composer. If the entire point of the first movement was to confront us with questions of life and death, then it’s only suitable that these should resonate in us a little before moving on.

For we do move on indeed with the next two sections of the symphony… Very different vibes – to the extent one might think they are part of another piece altogether! Both movements are rather lighthearted and inspired by folk music, which Mahler adored. First, we dance a gentle Ländler…

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Then, we move on to a third movement «in calm, flowing motion» which pays tribute to Eastern European, Jewish musical traditions. Just like the Ländler, it feels like we are casually attending a dance, watching rounds and couples peacefully whirl around as the band plays on.

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Until this happens...

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Sounds like the party’s over… But where can this be going now, as there is only one movement left to bring this strange, contrasted journey to an end. Or is there…?

If you’ve attended concerts at the Philharmonie before or if you own recordings at home, then you will know that classical symphonies normally have four sections, or movements. Yet here, Mahler brings us a symphony in five movements.

Whether that was his plan from the start is up for debate. What is certain however is that after the three movements we just explored – the funeral and the two folksy ones – writer’s block hit him hard, and no wonder: composing a symphony about the meaning of life is an intimidating undertaking, to say the least!

So, Mahler was stuck. Until one day, one line of verse set him on fire:

Rise again, yes, you shall rise again / My dust

He had been to a funeral (again…) where a poem called «Resurrection» was read aloud. The epiphany was immediate:

«It struck me like lightning, this thing», he wrote, «and everything was revealed to me clear and plain!»

To the question «Is there something after death«, there was a simple answer: yes. Not only is there reason to believe in Eternal Life with a capital L, but this hope is precisely what gives life on earth its meaning.

Hence the lead-up, in the symphony’s final movement, to this beautiful vocal solo…

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Believe, o my heart… The soul isn’t afraid, muzzled by life’s anxieties and trials anymore. It speaks, it sings of its new-found faith, urging the listener to just let go and join in.

The brass section amplifies this. Posted off-stage, the musicians literally surround the audience with sounds that resemble more a friendly, gentle call than the threatening blast of Judgement Day…

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The experience is absolutely transcendent. But let’s rewind for a little bit. I did mention five movements and we are already on to the finale without having talked about the fourth. A sublime yet mysterious song called «Urlicht», ie. «Primordial Light», which Mahler squeezed into the score at the last minute. It may sound like quite a random thing to do, but perhaps this late addition holds the key to the entire symphony. Let’s listen…

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This is so unsettling, yet at the same time hypnotising. The words sound like a strange prayer, or an inner monologue… Perhaps this interlude isn’t meant to be explained. It simply is - just like our meandering minds, which so often resist rationality.

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What is certain however, is that in Mahler’s mind, the finale has no meaning without the Urlicht. Light exists only because of darkness, faith because of doubt, life because of death. And with that thought, we enter the symphony’s exhilarating climax:

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​​I shall die in order to live.

Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my heart, in an instant!

What you have conquered,

To God shall it carry you!

These words, sung by choir on full power and supported by a mighty surprise guest ie. the organ, are Mahler’s himself…  They are the reason why Mahler’s Symphony N° 2 is primarily known today under its nickname: the Resurrection.

We look forward to experiencing this masterpiece with you on 16.04. as the conductor Tugan Sokhiev teams up once again with our very own Luxembourg Philharmonic. You can listen back to this podcast after the performance and, of course, don’t forget to pick up one of our free evening programmes by the entrance of the Philharmonie on the day of the concert so you can dive even deeper into Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.