Mahler II

Over the weekend, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the CSO Chorus wrapped our 25th Anniversary season...and what a way to go out. Mahler's Second Symphony in C minor - The Resurrection Symphony - was performed Friday, Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, and it was my first experience of the piece. I am grateful to have been able to perform the work under Maestro Jeffrey Kahane - his understanding of the piece and his explanation to the audience prior to the start of the performace was a wonderful bonus.

If you're unfamiliar with this music, it is a HUGE work. Nearly every section is doubled, and it was hard to believe they got all those people onto a single stage. And there is so much happening in the music that it took me until Sunday afternoon to truly enjoy the performance. I think I was so overwhelmed the first two times we went through the piece that I had trouble absorbing everything that the music had to say. This actually leads to an interesting note that was mentioned in the introduction. In the score, Mahler noted at the end of the first movement that "there is to be a pause here of at least five minutes". Maestro Kahane projected that there might be two reasons for this - 1. the music was so new and unique for its time that the audience could take at least that long to recover from what they had just heard or 2. Mahler wanted the audience to experience a little of what eternity might feel like!

While the chorus plays a small part in the symphony - we sing only in the final movement - it brings the beautiful lyrics, full of hope, to life.

In English (text is sung in German)

Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you My dust,

After a 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 in, like sheaves,

Us together, who died.

O believe, my heart, O believe:

Nothing to you is lost!

Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired

Yours, what you have loved

What you have fought for!

O believe,

You were not born for nothing!

Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!

What was created

Must perish,

What perished, rise again!

Cease from trembling!

Prepare yourself to live!

O Pain, You piercer of all things,

From you, I have been wrested!

O Death, You masterer of all things,

Now, are you conquered!

With wings which I have won for myself,

In love’s fierce striving,

I shall soar upwards

To the light which no eye has penetrated!

Its wing that I won is expanded,

and I fly up.

Die shall I in order to live.

Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my heart, in an instant!

That for which you suffered,

To God will it lead you!

If you ever have the chance to attend this concert, it's worth the two hours of you life to hear it at least once. And if you're like me, it's worth giving it a second and a third chance, since so much can come of it each time you listen!

Here is the review from the DenverPost - http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_12533305.