In the great late-Romantic composer Gustav Mahler’s program notes for a 1901 performance of his Symphony No. 2, he sets the scene for the first movement, the allegro maestoso: “We are standing near the grave of a well loved man. His whole life, his struggles, his sufferings, and his accomplishments on earth pass before us. And now, in this solemn and deeply stirring moment, when the confusion and distractions of everyday life are lifted like a hood from our eyes, a voice of awe-inspiring solemnity chills our heart, a voice that, blinded by the mirage of everyday life, we usually ignore: “What next?” it says. “What is life and what is death?”
Those words reflect the sweep and power of what’s to come in this most well known of the Czech-born Mahler’s symphonies, often referred to as the Resurrection Symphony. The BU College of Fine Arts is presenting a performance of the work tonight at Symphony Hall by the BU Symphony Orchestra and BU Symphonic Chorus, with David Hoose at the podium and Scott Allen Jarrett (CFA’99,’08), School of Music acting director of choral activities and Marsh Chapel music director, as assistant conductor.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams has called Resurrection “idealistic, fantastic, grotesque, violent, tender, sarcastic, confrontational, confessional” and “the most profoundly autobiographical of all composed music.”
The frequently performed work is riveting: full of beauty, rage, and redemption, it guides the listener from darkness to light in five movements. Tonight’s performance will feature as vocal soloists soprano Kelley Hollis (CFA’15) and mezzo-soprano Sara Beth Shelton (CFA’15).
Gustav Mahler, 1860–1911.
“Mahler, whose music was rejected and neglected during his own lifetime, but has become a beacon for so many people in ours, said, ‘A symphony must be like the world; it must contain everything,’” says Hoose, a CFA professor of music and director of orchestral activities. “Mahler’s Second Symphony, Resurrection, fulfills this artistic creed more vividly than any of his other symphonies and perhaps as compellingly as any music. The journey, asking nothing less than what is life and what is death? begins at the grave, traveling through despair, nostalgia, and cynicism to find simple faith, and it is ultimately lifted on wings toward overwhelming love that fills us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence. Little other music is more satisfying to study, to be immersed in, to sing, to play, and—most importantly—to hear.”
Composed over a six-year period, Resurrection circles and embraces the questions of mortality and the meaning of life, in parts plunging into the belly of the beast. At the start of the final movement, “the orchestra lets out an appalling shriek, a cry of disgust from a tortured, soul,” writes Thomas Peattie, a CFA assistant professor of music, in the program notes for tonight’s performance. Mahler’s choral score includes the poem “Urlicht” (“Primal Light”) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a collection of German folk poems published in the early 19th century that frequently served as inspiration for the composer. The words reinforce the possibility of redemption suggested by the poem’s last lines: “I am from God and will return to God. The Dear God will give me a light. Will light me to eternal blessed life.”
The Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus concert, presented by the CFA School of Music, is tonight, Tuesday, April 7, at 8 p.m., at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Ave., Boston. Seating is general admission. Tickets are $25; student rush tickets are $10, available at the door today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Members of the BU community receive one free ticket at the door on the day of the performance. Purchase tickets here or call 617-266-1200.
The concert will be broadcast live on the School of Music website and archived in the School of Music’s Virtual Concert Hall.