With Mahler’s full expressive fever, Symphony No.2 ‘Resurrection’, a vast existential and metaphysical poem, explores the question of finiteness and the hope of life after death. Borrowed from a poem by Klopstock (1724-1803), the term ‘Resurrection’ is the point on the horizon towards which the five movements converge, in a work also drawing from the melodic treasure of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’). After an imposing funerary piece, quoting the famous Dies Irae, the memory of folk celebration relieves the tension, symbolising the strength and endurance of vital instinct. But anxiety soon resurges in the form of an ironic, infernal ronde, streaked with desperate dissonances and culminating in a poignant melody, ‘Urlicht’ (‘Original light’), with the voice of the alto singing the distress of humankind. Powerful and driven by internal struggles, the vast Finale resounds until the murmur of the choir after an apocalyptic silence: ‘I will die to live.’
