Mahler Resurrection Symphony PROGRAM NOTES

Fun fact: George Walker was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music (in 1996). This season marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Walker: Icarus in Orbit Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (“Resurrection”)

Nothing less than the ultimate questions lie at the heart of this program. Mahler’s Second Symphony embodies what music director Valentina Peleggi characterizes as “the urgency of music” — its capacity to go beyond the creation of beauty (let alone serve as mere ear candy) and grapple with the meaning of existence itself. Mahler’s symphonies, she recalls, played a key role in igniting her passion for conducting, particularly after she experienced performances led by the legendary Zubin Mehta.

Mahler’s Second tests the very limits of musical expression. The heroism of pushing the limits inevitably entails dangerous risks, as we are reminded by the classical myth of Icarus that inspired the eminent American composer George Walker. The first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music (in 1996), Walker was himself a remarkable trailblazer. This season marks the 100th anniversary of his birth, so as an homage we hear Icarus in Orbit, a compact tone poem composed in 2003 for the 25th anniversary of the New Jersey Youth Symphony.

Walker distills the story of Icarus, son of the ingenious inventor and artist Daedalus, who concocted an escape plan from their imprisonment by crafting wings of feathers and wax. Despite his warnings to his son not to fly too close to the sun, lest the wax melt, Icarus became enchanted by the exhilarating experience of his ascent — until his wings were rendered useless and he plunged into the sea. After evoking a sense of expectation, Walker uses agitated figures to suggest the moment of flight and then, in striking orchestral colors, the vision all too briefly commanded by Icarus — until the music stops short with an ominous series of chords and a lone flute traces the boy’s plummet from the sky.

Gustav Mahler; Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”)

In 1888, while he was still at work on his groundbreaking First Symphony, Mahler had the initial idea for what would become the Second. He wrote a tone poem in the form of a funeral march, which he imagined accompanying the ritual mourning over a hero’s death. He then sensed that the piece needed more context and decided to expand it into an entire symphony.

But how? Mahler found the answer while attending an actual funeral commemoration for the famous conductor Hans von Bülow in February 1894, who had been something of a mentor. The memorial services included a hymn sung by choir to a poem called Auferstehung (“Resurrection”) by the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803). Since Mahler had already determined to build up to a choral conclusion — in the manner of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — this text struck him as ideal for the project.

Mahler’s choice of Klopstock’s text, from which he decided to set excerpts in the final chorus, came three years before he officially converted from the Jewish faith into which he had been born to

Catholicism (for reasons of professional expediency, as otherwise he could not have taken up his post as director of the Vienna Opera). Despite the Second Symphony’s moments of agonized doubt about the promise of an afterlife, the touching simplicity of faith expressed by Klopstock’s ode opened up a way for Mahler to address the universal hope for some kind of transcendence. By the summer of 1894, he was able to sketch out the mammoth finale, the longest of the work’s five movements.

Mahler modified his descriptions of the Second over the years, but they all trace a similar basic narrative. The hero celebrated in the First Symphony has died and we are left mourning by his grave in the tragic opening movement in C minor. The stern main theme sets the tone, generating an immense feeling of tension and suspense. A glowing second theme eventually emerges in violins and horns and — like Icarus? — soars aloft with a spirit of hope, anticipating the “resurrection” music to come in the finale. But that is still a long way off.

The movement develops as one of Mahler’s signature funeral marches but finds room for tranquil reflections and memories amid the dire reminders of death. All of this builds to one of the most shattering climaxes in the symphonic literature. In the final measures, the music plunges mercilessly downward, as bleakly as a coffin descending into the grave.

The Andante that follows evokes a flashback — graceful glimpses of pleasures past that is touched with melancholy interludes. Powerful timpani strokes launch the flowing Scherzo, which returns to the C minor of the first movement, and to its sense of struggling with the riddle of life. Near the end, we hear a shocking outburst of panic, described by the composer as a “cry of despair.”

For the Fourth movement, Mahler sets words from the folk poetry anthology known as Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Youth’s Magic Horn”). Urlicht (“Primal Light”) introduces the sound of the human voice for the first time into the Second’s soundscape. The amber sonority of the low female voice along with the radiant brass chorale give an intimate glow to Urlicht that stands in striking contrast to the epic scale of the massive outer movements.

For all its beauty, however, this represents a childlike illusion of faith. The gnawing questions of the first movement and the Scherzo return in the sweeping panorama of the grand final movement, where Mahler paints a dramatic musical fresco — one filled with despair, hope, and anxious waiting before the answer comes in the affirmative vision sung in its final sections.

Mahler links back to earlier music in the symphony by recalling the “cry of despair” at the start of the finale; other thematic ideas heard earlier in the work recur throughout this movement. Immediately after this initial outburst, we encounter anticipations of how the choral finale will resolve everything: the ascending “resurrection theme” is played by the horns. A terrifying percussion crescendo signals the arrival of a vast, apocalyptic march — a musical Last Judgment — that incorporates an offstage band of brass and

Did you know?

Mahler officially converted from the Jewish faith into which he had been born to Catholicism otherwise he could not have taken up his post as director of the Vienna Opera.

percussion. The horn and then brass issue a roll call for the assembled dead that the composer titled “The Great Summons,” followed by solo flute and piccolo as the deathly voice of the nightingale amid the ruins. Mahler’s use of silence maximizes the sense of suspense. From this, at last, emerges the chorus: not in blazing triumph but in an unforgettably unexpected a cappella hush: suddenly, the promises scattered earlier throughout the Second acquire a new resonance. The solo soprano soars aloft, and the “resurrection theme” resounds in its most thrilling form. The soprano and alto unite in a duet, and the full chorus swells with the orchestra in a statement of overwhelming affirmation. Mahler’s highly personal vision of redemption suggests that the answer is to be found in art itself.

Much of this composer’s music provoked misunderstanding or even hostility from his contemporaries. The premiere of the First Symphony in 1889, for example, was a nerve-wracking fiasco. But the Second Symphony was warmly welcomed by the public in its first performances and became the most popular of his symphonies for Mahler’s contemporaries. Its depiction of the hope for a rebirth, for some kind of enduring meaning, has lost none of its power to move audiences.

Eternal Tango Pops

Chia-Hsuan Lin CONDUCTOR (pg.8-9)

Héctor Del Curto BANDONEON (pg.68) with the Hector Del Curto Quintet and tango dancers

Apr

15 SAT • 8:00 pm

Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Energy Center

PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992)

Michelangelo 70

VILLOLDO (1861-1919)

El Choclo

VILLOLDO /arr. JEFF TYZIK

El Choclo (Kiss of Fire)

HÉCTOR DEL CURTO (B. 1971) /orch. JISOO OK

Los Magos

WALLER (1904-1943) /arr. DANA PAUL

Ain’t Misbehavin’

HÉCTOR DEL CURTO /orch. JISOO OK

Paris to Cannes

PIAZZOLLA

Verano Poerteño

RODRÍGUEZ (1897-1948) /orch. JEFF TYZIK

La Cumparsita

INTERMISSION

PIAZZOLLA /trans. BRAGATO /orch. JEFF TYZIK

Escualo (Ritmo Libre)

PIAZZOLLA /orch. JEFF TYZIK

Vuelvo al Sur

PIAZZOLLA La Muerte del Angel

HÉCTOR DEL CURTO /orch. JISOO OK

De Allá Vengo

HÉCTOR DEL CURTO /orch. JISOO OK

Bien Curiosa (Milonga for Santiago)

PIAZZOLLA Romance del Diablo

PIAZZOLLA /arr. & orch. JISOO OK

Libertango

2:00 approximate program length

In Concert

FILM LIVE WITH ORCHESTRA

PRESENTED BY RICHMOND SYMPHONY

FULL ORCHESTRA

SATURDAY, MAY 6 @ 2:00PM & 8:00PM ALTRIA THEATER

MUSIC BY JOHN WILLIAMS

Romantic Chopin Symphony Series

Tito Muñoz CONDUCTOR (pg.72)

Michelle Cann PIANO (pg.67)

Florence Robertson Givens Guest Artist

BOULANGER (1893-1918)

D’un Matin de Printemps

CHOPIN (1810-1849)

Concerto No. 1 in E Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 11

I. Allegro maestoso

II. Romanze - Larghetto

III. Rondo - Vivace

Michelle Cann, PIANO

INTERMISSION

ELGAR (1857-1934)

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 “Enigma Variations”

Theme: “Enigma” Andante

Variations:

I. “C.A.E.” L’istesso (tempo)

II. “H.D.S.- P.” Allegro

III. “R.B.T.” Allegretto

IV. “W.M.B.” Allegro di molto

V. “R.P.A.” Moderato

VI. “Ysobel” Andantino

VII. “Troyte” Presto

VIII. “W.N.” Allegretto

IX. “Nimrod” Moderato

X. “Dorabella - Intermezzo” Allegretto

XI. “G.R.S.” Allegro di molto

XII. “B.G.N.” Andante

XIII. “*** - Romanza” Moderato

XIV. “E.D.U.” Finale

2:03 approximate program length