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THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2016-2017 59 Program Notes for mezzo-soprano solo, was completed; by the end of the month, the Andante, newly conceived, was finished. By the end of summer 1893, the first four movements of the Symphony were finished, but Mahler was still unsure about the work’s ending. The finality implied by the opening movement’s “Funeral Rite” seemed to allow no logical progression to another point of climax. As a response to the questions posed by the first movement, he envisioned a grand choral close for the work, much in the manner of the triumphant ending of Beethoven’s last symphony. “My experience with the last movement of my Second Symphony was such that I literally ransacked world literature, even including the Bible, to find the redeeming word.” Still, no solution presented itself. In December 1892, Bülow’s health gave out and he designated Mahler to be his successor as conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic concerts. A year later Bülow went to Egypt for treatment, but died suddenly at Cairo on February 12, 1894. Mahler was deeply saddened by the news. He met with Josef Förster the same day and played through the Totenfeier with such emotion that his friend was convinced it was offered “in memory of Bülow.” Förster described the memorial service at Hamburg’s St. Michael Church: “Mahler and I were present at the moving farewell.... The strongest impression to remain was that of the singing of the children’s voices. The effect was created not just by Klopstock’s profound poem Auferstehen — ‘Resurrection’ but by the innocence of the pure sounds issuing from the children’s throats. The funeral procession started. At the Hamburg Opera, where Bülow had so often delighted the people, he was greeted by the funeral music from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung conducted by Mahler. “Outside the Opera, I could not find Mahler. But that afternoon I hurried to his apartment as if to obey a command. I opened the door and saw him sitting at his writing desk. He turned to me and said: ‘Dear friend, I have it!’ I understood: ‘Auferstehen, ja auferstehen wirst du nach kurzen Schlaf.’ I had guessed the secret: Klopstock’s poem, which that morning we had heard from the mouths of children, was to be the basis for the finale of the Second Symphony.” On June 29, 1894, three months later, Mahler completed his monumental “Resurrection” Symphony, six years after it was begun. What To Listen For The composer himself wrote of the emotional engines driving this Symphony: “1st movement. We stand by the coffin of a well-loved person. His life, struggles, passions and aspirations once more, for the last time, pass before our mind’s eye. — And now in this moment of gravity and of emotion which convulses our deepest being, our heart is gripped by a dreadfully serious voice which always passes us by in the deafening bustle of daily life: What now? What is this life — and this death? Do we have an existence beyond it? Is all this only a confused dream, or do life and this death have a meaning? — And we must answer this question if we are to live on. “2nd movement — Andante (in the style of a Ländler). You must have attended the funeral of a person dear to you and then, perhaps, the picture of a happy hour long past arises in your mind like a ray of sun undimmed — and you can almost forget what has happened. “3rd movement — Scherzo, based on Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt. When you awaken from the nostalgic daydream of the preceding movement and you return to the confusion of real life, it can happen that the ceaseless motion, the senseless bustle of daily activity may strike you with horror. Then life can seem meaningless, a gruesome, ghostly spectacle, from which you may recoil with a cry of disgust! “4th movement — Urlicht (mezzo-soprano solo). The moving voice of naïve faith sounds in our ear: I am of God, and desire to return to God! God will give me a lamp, will light me to eternal bliss! “5th movement. We again confront all the dreadful questions and the mood of the end of the first movement. The end of all living things has come. The Last Judgment is announced and the ultimate terror of this Day of Days has arrived. The earth quakes, the graves burst open, the dead rise and stride hither in endless procession. Our senses fail us and all consciousness fades away at the approach of the eternal Spirit. The ‘Great Summons’ resounds: the trumpets of the apocalypse call. Softly there sounds a choir of saints and heavenly creatures: ‘Rise again, yes, thou shalt rise again.’ And the glory of God appears. All is still and blissful. And behold: there is no judgment; there are no sinners, no righteous ones, no great and no humble — there is no punishment and no reward! An almighty love shines through us with blessed knowing and being.” © 2017 Dr. Richard E. Rodda Please visit www.FloridaOrchestra.org for our full program notes.


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