On Mahler's Second Symphony

Post date: 06-May-2011 17:00:34

I came across this curiosity in my monthly ‘Discovering Music’ newsletter from the BBC.

“A symphony that begins with a Totenfeier and ends with a poem about resurrection is clearly about death and the afterlife, but the theology is uncertain: Mahler cuts Klopstock’s text short before the mention of Christ, and substitutes his own words, which constitute the major part of the text. Resurrection without Christ is an improbable theological proposition; one is tempted to think here more perhaps of doctrines of reincarnation, though there is no evidence that this idea formed part of Mahler’s design.”

Keith Hannis, who wrote the notes to Mahler’s 2^nd symphony, seems to have forgotten that he also wrote earlier in the article,

“Mahler saw himself as a paradoxical outsider, revealing his awareness of his rootlessness and anomalous position in the remark, ‘I am three times homeless: a native of Bohemia in Austria; an Austrian amongst Germans [he held conducting posts in Leipzig and Hamburg, amongst others]; a Jew throughout the whole world.’ Born in Bohemia, he later converted to Catholicism, mainly in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to circumvent anti-Semitic opposition to his career in Vienna.”

What is heard, seen and felt in Mahler is not the mathematically precise Baroque and Classical church approved exposition of an accepted and orderly cosmology dependent upon an intercessor. Nor, as Hannis rightly states, is there any reason to think that reincarnation might be involved in any way. Rather I suggest that, given Mahler’s original faith, that it is the transcendent journey of one soul towards One God, without the need for any other qualification or permission, that may be felt, seen and heard.