It was the last concert conducted by Jaap van Zweden in his tenure at the New York Philharmonic. On the program was one of the most mighty, improbable, complicated, and enduring pieces of the symphonic repertoire, the Second Symphony of Gustav Mahler, also called “Resurrection.”
It was sold out, of course, as are most performances of Mahler in the symphonic halls of the world. These are hard to come by simply because they require an unusual amount of resources, talent from the conductor and musicians, and time in rehearsal. But for the venues that can manage, they are nearly always a huge hit with audiences.
Mahler as a composer has developed a fanatical fan base over the years, and understandably so. His music in general was both before its time and after its time, so while as a conductor, he was in high regard in his lifetime, his fame was far behind his reputation as a composer. His music was largely unperformed for decades after his death but for continued enthusiasm from his friend and conductor Bruno Walter and then later Leonard Bernstein.
Sometimes in the 1980s and following, and because of enthusiasts and dedicated fans and benefactors, the Mahler fan base began to grow and grow. It continues to develop and grow today. The David Geffen Theater at Lincoln Center was packed with people who love his work, read every review, collect biographies and critical commentaries, and can talk up his glories in great detail.
Typically with such events, the highest-priced tickets are taken up by the people with the least knowledge but the most discretionary income, while the true experts are standing behind the railing in the third tier, holding tickets that cost $30. Oddly, the third tier also happens to have the best views and acoustics, so it all works out in the end.
Mahler’s long and elaborate symphonies follow a musically complicated trajectory with unpredictable narratives, surprising orchestrations, and unusual sounds that conjure up deep emotions, and lend themselves to a lifetime of reflection on their meaning. There are a total of nine in complete form and 11 if you include the composed themes of the 10th and another “Songs of the Earth” cycle.
It’s enough for a lifetime, for the composer and the listener.
It’s unclear how many people knew this night that also attending was actor Bradley Cooper. For the movie “Maestro,” he played the part of conductor Leonard Bernstein. In the film, Mr. Cooper conducts the last six minutes of this very piece, theatrically replicating with incredible detail the very movements and expressions of Bernstein himself. I’m sure Mr. Cooper was thrilled to attend a live presentation with a conductor using a different interpretation. At least from where I was sitting, Mr. Cooper seemed amazed at what was transpiring.
Mahler never liked to name his symphonies because he believed that the music should speak for itself without programmatic preconceptions. But it is still understandable how this one came to be called “Resurrection.” It’s because it begins with a funeral dirge. It ends with an astounding choral piece with orchestra that certainly resembles the triumph of life over death.
The lyrics: “What you have longed for is yours! Yours, what you have loved, what you have strived for! Oh, believe: You were not born in vain! You have not lived, suffered to no avail! Cease from trembling! Prepare yourself to live!”
There is simply no way to describe what it is like to be present in the orchestra hall in New York City. The 100-voice choir, which only sings on the fourth movement, produced a sound that I can honestly say I’ve never heard before. It was a mighty wall of human power, one so rich and penetrating that you could feel it in your heart and soul. I’ve heard choirs all over the world and never heard a sound like this one.
The resulting standing ovation lasted a very long time, and probably much longer even after I had made my way to the exit to beat the crowds.
There was a huge presence in the room that was not physical. It was Mahler himself, an enigmatic figure of soaring genius who lived a large but troubled life full of sadness and tragedy. The Second Symphony was completed by 1894, which was fully nine years following his First Symphony, which had such a poor reception. But he persisted in constructing his second, piece by piece, until its final completion.
For the first time, I gained a fascinating sense of the second movement of this piece. It is composed in a treble time signature a bit like a dance. It used classical harmonies, melodies, and forms, and is the only movement in the symphony that seems to have a direct melodic connection to the Viennese past of Haydn and Mozart.
This has to be for a reason, an homage that Mahler paid to his forebears but also a deferential gift to the audience of the 1890s that needed some link to what came before, in preparation for the unforgettable ending that introduced something entirely new.
It was not heard in New York until 1908. Incredibly, this performance was conducted by Mahler himself, who only took that position in New York because he was denied a prestigious position he expected in Vienna. It was a second-best choice, but he used that position to highlight his work. That was what kicked off his renewed career. So even though the venue has changed, and the name of the orchestra, too, (the Symphony merged with the Philharmonic in 1928), the specter of the person of the composer was everywhere in the space.
Mahler was the last mighty composer of his generation who deployed the musical language and modalities of the past, in the service of saying something new. After the Great War, the past itself was blown up, and the atonal structures came to embody what was then called “sophisticated” music. Mahler, then, represents the end of an era, or, we might say, the culminating moment of an entire history of civilization.
“Mahler’s Second Symphony is an epic eschatological journey into multiple configurations of darkness and several kinds of light. It tackles the biggest topics on the vastest scale, employing a truly gargantuan orchestra, plus soloists and choirs, for over an hour and a half, to explore nothing less than death, the afterlife and the concept of rebirth. It utilizes a staggering array of forms, textures and musical devices to bring this vision to us, continuing the work of the First and reinventing the symphony with unheard-of audacity and imagination.”
Vernon’s commentary goes on to describe the history and meaning of this achievement.
In the course of the evening, my mind kept returning to the terrible grim days of 2020. The New York Philharmonic canceled the autumn part of its season through June 2021. It opened only with masking and vaccine mandates.
It was the first time in 178 years that the Philharmonic canceled events. This happened all over the country and the world. In other words, the elites of the world shut down the music and then opened only for the vaccine-compliant. This is surely for a reason. Music is emancipatory beyond the powers of this world. It causes us to think outside the state and outside the lies of our times. It introduces truths about which some people don’t want us to think.
The entire audience certainly felt that on the evening of June 8. Many arts institutions did not survive the lockdowns. Others continue to struggle. The New York Philharmonic made it through, but thanks only to high capitalization, benefactors, and dedicated patrons of the arts. May the music never go silent again, in the concert halls or our hearts.
