Sunday Classics preview: "Prepare yourself to live!" -- Mahler and resurrection

The final 4:44 (our No. 11 below) of Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection, with Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra, with mezzo Jard van Nes and soprano Roberta Alexander, in 1984 -- our No. 11a comes at 1:40 of the clip, the grand final peroration (our No. 11b) at 2:14.

by Ken

We're bumping this edition of "preview" into DWT prime time because, even though as you'll see I'm not really undertaking to say much about the music itself, we're tackling one of the grandest monuments in the musical literature: the finale, the "Resurrection" movement (incorporating a setting of a somewhat custom-tailored version of Klopstock's ode "The Resurrection"), of Mahler's mighty Second Symphony, the Resurrection. Somehow this didn't read as a mere "preview."

So let's start with an anecdote.

A MAHLER SECOND SYMPHONY ANECDOTE

I wasn't a big fan of the "Europeanized" Leonard Bernstein of the '70s and '80s, when his tempos generally seemed to have slowed to a crawl and the playing he drew seemed to me to grow rather mooshy and shapeless. During this period, on one of his regular guest-conducting returns to the New York Philharmonic, he was scheduled to conduct one of his specialties, Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection.

As it happened, the orchestra had recently instituted a policy of opening many of the orchestra's Thursday morning rehearsals, which is to say the rehearsal on the morning of what was normally the first of four performances (running through Tuesday night) of that week's subscription program, at a preposterously low price. Of course attendees were guests of the orchestra, which was there to work, and there was no guarantee that you would hear an actual performance. You might hear a run-through of one of the works on the program, or you might hear the conductor and orchestra quickly get up to speed on an as-yet-unrehearsed piece on the program, especially if it's one that the orchestra has played a lot. But it was a way of getting a glimpse at the rehearsal process, not to mention getting to hear some real music at dirt-cheap price.

There was indeed an open rehearsal for Lenny's Resurrection, and it turned out to be his first opportunity to rehearse with the Westminster Symphonic Chorus, which had been prepared only by its own conductor, who presumably had discussed basic interpretive issues with Maestro Bernstein to find out how the chorus was to be prepared. But of course that's not at all the same thing as having actually rehearsed with him. And clearly they didn't have a lot of rehearsal time available.

Now, the chorus's first entrance in the finale of the Resurrection, No. 8 in our breakdown below, which occurs at roughly the midpoint of the roughly 35-minute movement, is -- or can be -- one of the truly magical moments in music. The finale explodes out of the final chord of the fourth movement, Mahler's setting of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn poem "Urlicht," which by now should be an old friend. (We've heard it sung by Maureen Forrester (with Glenn Gould conducting!), by Christa Ludwig (her 1978 recording with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic), and by Janet Baker (with Otto Klemperer and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, in 1965).

There have been a number of false starts, when the audience might have expected to see that big chorus that's been sitting on its collective duff all evening finally start singing. But now is the moment, and Lenny clearly wanted that first "Auferstehn" to sound as if it was coming out of nowhere. He also wanted it slow, and I do mean slow! It was so slow, it didn't even seem to ge moving. Which certainly fit well with my not-wild-about-Lenny mood of the period.

When I mentioned this to my friend Sedgwick, whose life, I think it's fair to say, had been changed by Bernstein's Mahler, he insisted that I attend the Saturday night performance (yes, including getting me into it!). And it was one of the transcendent musical experiences of my life. What I think Lenny had been doing was preparing the chorus to sing the section even slower than he planned to do in performance, to prepare them mentally and physically for an even more exhausting ordeal -- and then the actual performances turned out to be, relatively speaking, a cinch.

It's my understanding that Lenny, the Philharmonic, and Deutsche Grammophon, for which he was then engaged in recording a final Mahler cycle with various orchestras, decided then that not only the Resurrection but the Third and Eighth Symphonies would have to be recorded in New York, however expensive that would be. Since Lenny was making all his recordings by then from live performances, this meant shoehorning the works into the already largely planned Philharmonic schedule. The Resurrection duly took place in April 1987 -- and proved to be an even slower performance than the 1986 one -- and the Third in November (same calendar year, but different seasons, of course -- 1986-87 and 1987-88. I understand that the Eighth was also scheduled, but Lenny died before that much-hoped-for event could take place. (To complete the audio cycle, DG used the audio from the 1975 Salzburg video recording of the Eighth, and also from the 1974 video recording of the Adagio of the Tenth.)

When the Resurrection recording came out, I thought oh for Lenny's sake this is just too damned slow. It took awhile, but eventually I came around.


MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light")
Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht
(Very solemn, but simple) [6:18]

O rosebud red!
Man lies in the greatest need.
Man lies in the greatest anguish.
Far rather would I be in heaven.

Then I came to a broad path.
Then a little angel came and wanted to send me away.
But no! I didn't let myself be sent away.

I am from God, I want to return to God.
Dear God will give me a little light,
will light me all the way to eternal blessed life.

v. Finale (1)
Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend.
(In the tempo of the Scherzo. Driving out wildly.) [1:46]


v. Finale (2)
Langsam (Slow) [3:59]


v. Finale (3)
Im Anfang sehr zurückhaltend (At the start very held back) [1:19]


v. Finale (4)
Wieder sehr breit (Very broad again) [3:42]


v. Finale (5)
Molto ritenuto. Maestoso. (Suddenly very slowed. Majestic.) [4:16]


v. Finale (6)
Wieder zurückhaltend (Held back again) [3:58]


v. Finale (7)
Sehr langsam und gedehnt (Very slow and drawn out) [2:48]


v. Finale (8)
Langsam. Misterioso. (Slow. Mysterious.) [4:10]
"Auferstehn, ja auferstehn wirst du"
("Rise again, yes you will rise again")
[chorus with soprano solo]

Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you My dust,
After a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
Will He who called you, give you.

v. Finale (9)
Langsam ppp. Nicht schleppen. (Slow ppp. Not dragged.) [3:57]
"Wieder aufzublühn, wirst du gesät"
("To bloom again, you are sown")
[soprano solo with chorus]

To bloom again you are sown!
The Lord of the harvest goes
And gathers in, like sheaves,
Us together, who died.

v. Finale (10)
Etwas bewegter (Somewhat more animated) [3:34]
"O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube"
("O believe, my heart, o believe")
[alto solo, soprano solo, chorus]

[a] at 2:36: "Hör auf zu beben"
("Leave off your trembling")

[b] at 3:08: "Bereite dich! Bereite dich zu leben!"
("Prepare yourself! Prepare yourself to live!")

ALTO
O believe, my heart, o believe:
Nothing to you is lost!
Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired
Yours, what you have loved
What you have fought for!
SOPRANO
O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!
CHORUS
What was created,
That must pass.
What has passed, rise again!
[a]
Leave off your trembling!
[b]
Prepare yourself, prepare yourself to live!

v. Finale (11)
Mit Aufschwung, aber nicht eilen
(With impetus, but not hurried) [5:09]
"O Schmerz, du Alldurchdringer"
("O pain, you penetrator of all things")
[alto and soprano solos and duet, chorus]

[a] at 1:44: "Sterben werd' ich um zu leben"

[b] at 2:17: "Auferstehn, ja auferstehn"

ALTO
O pain, you penetrator of all things!
From you, I have been wrested!
SOPRANO
O death, you masterer of all things!
Now, are you conquered!
With wings that I won for myself
In love’s fierce striving,
I will soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Its wing that I won is expanded,
and I fly up.
[a]
I will die in order to live.
[b]
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That for which you suffered,
It will lead you to God!

Barbara Hendricks, soprano; Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Westminster Choir, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live April 1987

AND FINALLY --

let's hear the whole thing put together. We go back here to Lenny's middle recording of the Resurrection, made in conjunction with the famous September 1973 performance in Ely Cathedral. (So no, this is not the soundtrack of the much-circulated video recording,which would become the first installment of an LB complete Mahler video cycle.)

MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light")
Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht
(Very solemn, but simple) [6:03]


v. Finale
Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend.
(In the tempo of the Scherzo. Driving out wildly.) [36:23]
(1) 0:00, (2) 1:48, (3) 5:40, (4) 6:50, (5) 10:30, (6) 14:37, (7) 18:27, (8) 21:05, (9) 24:44, (10) 28:14, (10a) 30:32, (10b) 31:00, (11) 31:23, (11a) 33:05, (11b) 33:37



Sheila Armstrong, soprano; Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Edinburgh Festival Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1973-74

POSTSCRIPT: Not that her work here seems to me to call for any kind of apology or explanation, all the more so in view of Lenny's extremely broad tempo for "Urlicht," but perhaps more in a sense of wonder I note that Christa Ludwig was 59 at the time of this performance.


IN TOMORROW'S POST

In last night's preview we added one more element to our survey of Mahler's Third Symphony. Tomorrow is the big day: We finally assemble all our elements of the Resurrection and Third Symphonies -- and throw in the first two movements of each, which we haven't even touched!

"Prepare yourself to live," indeed!


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