FRIDAY, MARCH 21

SPECIAL PROGRAM: MSO Season Opening Gala: Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony

Soprano Eleanor Lyons and mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison join the MSO Chorus and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony.

Given that the traditionalist Johannes Brahms described his contemporary Anton Bruckner’s hour-long symphonies as ‘boa constrictors’ he was unlikely to proffer kind words for an eighty-minute epic by Bruckner’s young disciple. “Up to now I thought Richard Strauss was the chief of the iconoclasts”, grumbled the old Classicist after perusing the score of Mahler’s Second Symphony, “but now I see that Mahler is the king of the revolutionaries.” Since Brahms himself admitted he was overwhelmed by the long shadow cast by his famous predecessor Ludwig van Beethoven’s final symphony, he was probably also taken aback by Mahler’s adding an on-stage orchestra of an unprecedented size and a considerable off-stage ensemble to Beethoven’s chorus of singers. 

Brahms wasn’t the only member of the old guard to express their horror of this revolutionary score. Despite being regarded as a champion of new music the eminent conductor Hans von Bülow is said to have covered his ears when Mahler played him the recently completed first movement: “If what I have heard is music, I understand nothing about music.   .   . Compared with this, [Richard Wagner’s opera] “Tristan” is a Haydn symphony.” Undeterred, Mahler pressed on over several years to complete his eighty-minute musical monolith, later claiming the inspiration for the work’s final movement came to him after he attended von Bülow’s memorial service in Hamburg and heard the choir singing the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s “Resurrection” hymn. “It was like a flash of lightning, and everything became plain and clear in my mind!” The following summer he completed this movement in just three weeks.

Despite turning his nose up at pieces accompanied by published program notes explaining their narrative, Mahler privately jotted down a scenario which explains the import of the work’s title: “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 cry for mercy and forgiveness sounds fearful in our ears. Then God in all His glory comes into sight.   .   . Behold, there is no judgment.   .   . A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our earthly life.” The thought of being granted salvation by a higher power resonated with the audience at the works premiere (the biographer Jens Malte Fischer notes many wept and embraced their partners at the work’s conclusion) not to mention Mahler’s emotionally-charged music, which makes this one of the most popular of his nine symphonies to this day.  

Recorded live in concert at Hamer Hall, Narrm/Melbourne, on March 1, 2025 by ABC Classic. Producer Duncan Yardley. Sound Engineers Alex Stinson and Adeniyi Adepoyibi.

Program

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon: Long time living here
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, ‘Resurrection’

Artists

Eleanor Lyons (soprano)
Catriona Morison (mezzo-soprano)
MSO Chorus
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Warren Trevelyan-Jones (chorus director)
Jaime Martín (conductor)

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