Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (1884–8), also known as the ‘Titan’, is a symphonic portrait of a ‘hero’ who bears a close resemblance to the young Mahler – a loner who grapples with himself and with the world, whose life struggle ‘dall’inferno al paradiso’, as Mahler called it in an early version, is celebrated only at the last minute with a conquest of self. Yet, remarkably, it is precisely this alter ego that Mahler finishes off in his Second Symphony. ‘I have called the first movement “Todtenfeier” [Funeral Pomp],’ he wrote to the composer and music critic Max Mar­schalk, ‘and it may interest you to know that it is the hero of my D major symphony who is being borne to his grave, his life being reflected as in a clear mirror. Here, too, the great question is asked: What did you live for? Why did you suffer? Is it all only a vast, terrifying joke? We have to answer these questions somehow if we are to go on living – indeed, even if we are only to go on dying! The person in whose life this call has resounded, even if it was only once, must give an answer. And it is this answer that I give in the last movement.’

The letter to Ma­rschalk gives the impression, between the lines in any case, that Mahler felt he had outgrown the egocentric obsessions of his own heroic years, demonstrably sealing his spiritual evolution with the interment of a former self. The most individual stirrings of the soul in the First Symphony are no match for the seasoned universal questions of humanity in the Second.

Indeed, the transformation is audible. Although he did write one movement of the Second Symphony the same year he completed the First, Mahler proving once again that he is a master of the grotesque, the Second Symphony lacks the impetuous, eccentrically ambiguous elan of its predecessor, which with all its pathos truly was a youthful work. Nearly an hour and a half long and scored for a giant orchestra with a large brass section, Fernorchester, large choir, and soprano and contralto parts, the Second Symphony rivals Beethoven’s Ninth (1823–4). Deliberately and with Beethoven in mind, Mahler transcends the symphonic form, which had become a straitjacket for him in his attempt to express the highest ideas, as he would later tell his friend, the violinist Natalie Bauer-Lechner; ultimately, he had to resort to the use of words, since he simply ‘could not manage any longer with notes alone’.

Two of the five movements contain vocal parts, and a third is based on Mahler’s lie­d output. The fourth movement (‘Urlicht’) is a li­ed from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the early nineteenth-century German folk song anthology that left an indelible mark on Mahler’s li­eder and symphonies. The third movement, a scherzo, is an instrumental version of Mahler’s hilarious Wunderhorn lie­d Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, in which St Anthony preaches to the fish with naive and pointless devotion – a wasted effort indeed, given that his congregation proves to be as deaf as the human variety. Following an earth-shattering musical rendering of Judgement Day, the colossal choral finale concludes with a setting of Klopstock’s hopeful ‘Resurrection’ ode.

The means deployed are complementary to the work’s the­matic breadth. The narcissistic ‘Sturm und Drang’ of the First Symphony is relentlessly overcompensated for by an emphasis, lovingly placed, on the human condition. The misunderstood artist has become a humanist who, out of compassion, ponders the plight of his fellow man, and like a brother in distress, whispers a message of hope in his ear on Klopstock’s wings, promising resurrection and immortality. Mahler’s missionary zeal is so great that he even adds a few of his own lines of consoling verse to Klopstock’s text: ‘O glaube: Du wardst nicht umsonst geboren! Hast nicht umsonst gelebt, gelitten!’ (O believe, You were not born for nothing! Have not lived for nothing, Nor suffered!) The hero of the First Symphony is buried because a new one has risen up, a man who fraternises with his fellow men.

Like the first version of the First Symphony (that included ‘Blumine’, which Mahler later discarded), the Second Symphony is a five-movement work that appears to be divided into two Teile or Abteilungen (parts or units). Mahler suggested that they should be separated by at least a five-minute pause. The first Abteilung is made up of the funeral march (Allegro maestoso), originally composed as a self-contained whole; the break is proceeded by the instrumental ländler (Andante moderato) and a scherzo (‘In ruhig fliessender Bewegung’), directly followed by the hymn-like ‘Urlicht’ for solo contralto and the monumental finale.

As Mahler wrote to Ma­rschalk, the first movement, sketched in September 1888, originally bore the name ‘Todtenfeier’. As he had done with the First Symphony, Mahler called it a ‘symphonic poem’, albeit only after having crossed out the original title ‘Symphony in C minor’. According to statements he made to Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Mahler had made sketches of the Scherzo and Andante in Leipzig earlier in 1888, which he developed in Steinbach in 1893. Yet it was not until March 1894 that the symphony actually evolved into a fully fledged work. It was during the great conductor Hans von Bülow’s memorial service in Michaelskirche in Hamburg that Mahler heard Klopstock’s poem ‘The Resurrection’, which provided him with the revelation he needed to overcome his artistic and philosophical impasse. A few months later, on 25 July 1894, Mahler could write to his friend Arnold Berliner to tell him that he had completed the finale, saying, ‘Es ist das Bedeutendste, was ich bis jetzt gemacht habe’ (It is the greatest thing I have done so far).

Without yielding to the drudgery of the symphonic tradition, Mahler seems to seek a connection with his musical predecessors, more so than he had done in the First Symphony. The model of the choral symphony, explicitly borrowed from Beethoven, is one example, just as the technique of motivic fragmentation that emerges in the Second is frequently reminiscent of Beethoven. Echoes of Bruckner and Wagner are clearly audible. In the finale, Mahler combines the Dies irae theme – which Berlioz had used in his Symphonie fantastique (1830) – with the clamorous pandemonium in the orchestra depicting the Resurrection, followed by blasts in the brass featuring the trumpets of the apocalypse, headed ‘Der grosse Appell!’ (The grand summons!) in the manuscript. With all its show of genius, this is unadulterated figurative programme music.

All the more impressive is Mahler’s ability to incorporate a profusion of atmospheres and idioms (e.g. march, chorale, ländler, Naturlaut and lie­d) into a symphonic form in which extreme dramatic contrasts bolster, rather than weaken, the unity of the work. At first glance, the five movements are like neighbouring, yet independent, republics on a vast, savage symphonic continent. They are worlds apart in terms of their respective length, instrumentation and tone. Although constructive elements like tonal and the­matic relationships underpin either covertly or audibly their latent coherence, it is primarily the all-pervasive idea of the horror of death which holds this enormous work together. This fear ultimately becomes so unbearable that it is man’s steadfast belief in an escape which is his only consolation.

Translation: Josh Dillon