Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester

The Hallé perform Mahler’s 2nd Symhony,’Resurrection ,’ this Thursday, the 28th of January at 7:30 PM in the Bridgewater hall, under the direction of Marcus Stenz.

As you are getting ready to hear this week’s performance of  Mahler 2 (live, or on the radio in April), you may wish to read over the essays I wrote on the work in 2006, complete with lots of musical examples. It’s a pretty comprehensive roadmap to Mahler 2, if I say so myself.

Click here to start the interactive Mahler 2 Notes

Mahler, Mahler in Manchester Auferstehen, Mahler

As the fourth movement resolves into a vision of heavenly rest one could easily believe that our journey is at its end, but of course this short movement (only four minutes) could hardly balance out and resolve all the issues and challenges the symphony had posed up to this point. No, we must see the fourth movement for what it is, the promise and the vision of salvation, but not the manifestation of it.

The fourth movement ends serenely and sublimely in D-flat major (remember that key!), and fades into silence. Once again, though, Mahler tells the conductor to go immediately ahead to the finale, and the silence is shattered in the utmost violence. Of course, we’ve heard this music before, the agonized dissonance of B-flat minor over c natural, in the crisis point of the third movement. This opening gesture quickly elides into a more lyrical section in C major- yes we’re back in a major key again, but we’ve somehow lost that heavenly vision embodied in D-flat, we’ve fallen back to earth. Though c is the tonic note of the symphony, this turns out not to be a return to stability but the beginning of a new voyage, and this C major turns out to have been a preparation for the F minor section that follows (note that the key is a perfect fourth away, that same interval turns out to be important in the structure of the piece as it is in the melodic make up of it).

The fourth movement introduced one new sound, that of the human voice. It seems likely that after the introduction, as we arrive in this new key, that the voice would return. Instead, Mahler gives us something even more novel, an effect that Beethoven never used in the 9th. We hear, far in the distance, the sound of several horns playing in unison. It’s a sort of foreboding, desolate call. This first appearance of the offstage band lasts only four bars, then the orchestra takes over with music that seems to be searching for a direction, there is a quality of anticipation and uncertainty in this passage. Gradually, one by one, are introduced to a number of themes, a chorale theme first heard in the woodwinds, a more hopeful melody in the horns, and a very anguished one in the english horn. As it turns out, Mahler is doing exactly the opposite of what Beethoven did at the beginning of the finale of his 9th Symphony. Beethoven used the opening of his ninth to sum up all that had happened before in the piece, Mahler uses the opening of his second to show us all that is to come. Throughout, there is a sense of suspense, which of these themes will ultimately launch us on the journey to come? Once each theme has been introduced, we are confident that the central journey is ready to begin. The trombones restate the chorale theme, now it could really be Bach we’re hearing, but then again, the hopeful horn theme returns, even more grandly, and finally in C major, there is a great breakthrough. Where before the horn theme had dissolved from hope to despair, the trombones return with the chorale theme, but now in C major and with the melody transformed. Instead of falling back to the main not after one step, the melody rises onward. It is the second theme of the first movement, the great brass theme of the third and the opening of fourth movement. It is the first transformative moment in the symphony- we now know that we will never return to the world of Totenfeier.

Mahler himself, in a letter to his friend (the soprano Natalie Bauer-Lechner again) provided what is surely the definitive description of the next section. The great C major arrival finally subsides into the despairing horn theme from before, the trombones once again fall back after only one note up the scale, as C major turns out only to have been a dominant of F minor yet again. Mahler tells us- “It is the day of the Last Judgment… The earth trembles. Just listen to the drum-roll, and your hair will stand on end! The Last Trump sounds; the graves spring open, and all creation comes writhing out of the bowels of the earth, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now they all come marching along in a mighty procession: beggars and rich men, common folk and kings, the Church Militant, the Popes. All give vent to the same terror, the same lamentations and paroxysms; for none is just in the sight of God. Breaking again and again- as if from another world- the Last Trump sounds from the Beyond. “At last, after everyone has shouted and screamed in indescribable confusion, nothing is heard but the long drawn-out call of the Bird of Death above the last grave- finally that, too, fades away. There now follows what nothing of what has been expected: no Last Judgment, no souls saved and none damned; no just man, no evil-doer, no judge! Everything has ceased to be. And softly, simply there begins: “Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n…” (“Rise again, yes, you will rise again”) “the words themselves are sufficient commentary.”

You’re almost there- click here to reach the end of the symphony.

c 2006 Kenneth Woods

Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Mahler 2 Notes Auferstehen, Mahler

The great scene of the end of the world plays out as a march, mostly in F minor. Four flats in the key signature, how far from the purity of the C major peroration that preceded it. The final scream Mahler describes is a masterstroke- we’ve been expecting him to return to C major throughout the Last Judgment, but instead we land with the bass instruments all playing the note c-sharp fff, while the upper instruments all unleash the “scream of indescribable confusion” in B minor. It’s the same shattering, dissonant harmony from the beginning of the movement, the one we first heard in the scherzo, now transposed up a semi-tone. Its meaning is now clear, its very ambiguity now shows its purpose- it is a depiction  of the confusion and chaos at the end of the world.

In an instant, just as in the beginning the bass note becomes the tonic, except that instead of c becoming C major, c-sharp now becomes D-flat major, the key of the fourth movement, the key of our earlier vision of heaven. We’ve suddenly moved from the four flats of F minor to the five of D-flat major. As in the exposition, this arrival proves ephemeral. Just as before, the offstage horns return, changing our point of arrival into a further point of departure. Their purpose is now shown to us- they are the Last Trump.  As the bird of death fades into silence, our promise of heaven is destroyed.

The choral entry that follows could not be more magical. The D-flat/C-sharp tonality finally reveals its purpose- it is not our destination, it is the dominant of G-flat major, six flats, the furthest possible key from C, a tri-tone away. The choir enters with us having traveled as far from where we began as we possibly could.

“Rise again, you will rise again,”

Mahler has already told us that it is “beggars and rich men, common folk and kings, the Church Militant, the Popes” these words are spoken to, our lost protagonist of Totenfeier has become one with the millions.

From here on, the magical moments come at an astonishing rate. Out of the opening chorale floats the sound of a new soloist, not the contralto of Urlicht, but a soprano who joins the choir for the words

“Eternal life will be granted to you
by him who calls you to him.”

There is another instrumental interlude, based on the same trombone peroration we heard in C major so long ago, but now in G flat, and pp instead of ff. Where before the horns ended the celebratory mood with a cry of anguish, Mahler uses the same music, now staying in major, to launch us into the even more hopeful next stanza.

“You are sown to bloom again.”

The contralto finally returns, singing the anguished music first heard in the woodwinds so long ago. We’re now being reunited with each of those themes from the beginning, as we meet each one, its meaning becomes clear. This section is in B flat minor, five flats, so closer to home yet darker. She sings

“O believe, my heart, only believe:
Nothing is lost to you!
All that you yearned for is yours, yes yours;
Yours, all that you loved and fought for.
O Believe: you were not born in vain
You did not live or suffer in vain.”

The choir, now only the men, now return, still in five flats, singing the chorale theme.

“All that is created must die
All that has died must rise again.
Fear no more.
Prepare yourself! Prepare yourself to live!”

Now the two soloists sing together, in passionate, overlapping exclamations, now in the four flats of A-flat major, the key of the second movement. Again, just one flat closer to home. The basses join in gently with a sort of variation of theme the women just sang. The key signature has changed once more, but we’re not aware of it yet as the harmony is moving quite rapidly. They sing:

“On wings that I have won by the ardent labors of love, I shall soar aloft.”

The music here does soar, moving sequentially higher and higher until we arrive at the next great climax-

“Sterben werd ich, um zu leben!” or “I shall die so that I may live again!”

Now it is clear where that last key change has taken us- somewhere we have not gone yet in the 70 minutes of music we’ve heard- E-flat major. One flat fewer than where we were, we’ve made our way back from the beyond to the key signature with which we started the symphony, three flats. Now however, instead of C minor, the key of the funeral march (also the key of Beethoven’s funeral march in the Eroica and Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music), we’re in its relative major, E-flat. This is the first key we should have gone to (Beethoven’s funeral march moves to E-Flat major after just 16 bars!) in the symphony, instead Mahler has held it back through the entire work. In fact, he’s used almost every key there is except for this one and the effect is shattering. We’ve returned to where we came from- remember when the alto said: “Believe nothing is lost to you!” and yet we’ve also arrived somewhere we’ve never been, never though of in the whole symphony. Finally the choir sings, squarely in E flat major:

“Rise again, yes, you shall rise again
In a split second.
What you have endured
Shall carry you to God!”

In this final stanza, Mahler at last answers all the questions, musical and spiritual, posed by the symphon, and in particular by the cataclysm of the first movement. The suffering, despair and devastation of Totenfeier, which seemed so nihilistic before has now been revealed as the instrument of salvation. Having established our universality in the Last Judgment, Mahler now shows us that it is not membership in any subset of humanity, but the fact of being human that carries us to God.

c 2006 Keneth Woods

Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Mahler 2 Notes Auferstehen, Mahler