Arts & Events

The San Francisco Symphony brought its season to a close with four performances of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, Wednesday through Saturday, June 29-July 2, at Davies Hall. Mahler linked his Second Symphony to his First Symphony, stating that the hero of the First is borne to his grave in the funeral music of the Second and that “the real, the climactic dénouement [of the First] comes only in the Second.” With this in mind, I must observe that while I love Mahler’s First Symphony, I find his Second somewhat disjointed and problematic. The first and last movements of the Second are the biggest by far, in length but also in sheer volume of sound, and they tend to overwhelm the inner, softer movements. This was indeed the case in Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas’s reading of Mahler’s Second Symphony.  

To make matters even more problematic, there is a long stretch of music toward the end of the Second Symphony, between the radiant “Urlicht” song and the final choral “Auferstehung,” that always strikes me as sheer bombast. Here, as to a certain extent in the first movement, Mahler unleashes his huge orchestral forces with great blasts from strings and brass, savage outbursts from the timpanist, and shrieking violins and trumpets. It’s all a bit much. At this stage of his career, Mahler had not yet successfully assimilated his admiration for Bruckner’s symphonic architecture, with the result, here in his Second Symphony, that he strung together seemingly antithetical elements, hoping they would somehow hold together. To my mind, unfortunately, they don’t. 

With these reservations in mind, there are a number of shining moments in Mahler’s Second Symphony. The first movement, which Mahler initially intended as a stand-alone work, is entitled Totdenfeier (Funeral Rites) and is structured as a funeral march. The key of C minor recalls Beethoven’s memorable Marche funebre in his Eroica Symhony. Mahler here experiments with surprising tempo changes and contrasting dynamics, urging his string players to switch back and forth from “a violent onslaught” of fortissimo to slow moments of soft pianissimo. (This, too, is a characteristic effect Mahler borrowed from Bruckner.) The second movement opens with a tender, melodic theme, then turns quite dramatic before embarking on a fairly extensive passage of pizzicato plucking which starts in the violas and spreads throughout the strings. The third movement offers a symphonic take on Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn song about Saint Anthony preaching to the fishes. The sardonic scherzo seems to undercut this Christian tale, exposing its absurdity.  

Eventually, this scherzo slides to a halt, and the “Urlicht” song begins. Sung ravishingly here by mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor, this song, also from Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” is a quiet but fervent plea for a guiding light to illuminate the way to eternal life. Kelley O’Connor made this song the highlight of the piece, endowing it with tonal lushness and amazing breath control that enabled her to sustain the song’s long melodic lines.  

Then, alas, came the bombast. And it came with a vengeance. It just goes on and on, shrieking at the top of its orchestral lungs. I can find no rhyme or reason for this over-indulgence on Mahler’s part. Not even the taut reading led by Michael Tilson Thomas, impressive though it was, could salvage this bombast in my view. Fortunately, peace and sanity returned with the soft choral opening of the “Auferstehung” (“Resurrection”). Incidentally, it is this song which caused others, not Mahler himself, to call this Second Symphony the “Resurrection.” The large Symphony Chorus, directed by Ragnar Bohlin, began this Resurrection song very softly, then gradually built in fervor and volume, with soloists Kelley O’Connor and soprano Karina Gauvin adding their voices to this inspired plea for immortality, which reaches a transformative ecstasy in the words “Sterben werd’ich, um zu leben” (“I will die, that I might live.”)