Journey to Easter: From Chopin’s Pathos of the Tomb to Mahler’s Shoreless Light

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) reportedly confided to Jean Sibelius in a private conversation: “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” This perspective sheds light on why Mahler’s symphonies are considerably longer than those of other renowned composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Prior to Mahler, the symphony was a structured and relatively concise form; following his influence, it evolved into a vast, all-encompassing universe.

For a long time, I didn’t feel any connection to Mahler’s music. My initial exposure to his compositions was in the late 1970s at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, when the Columbus Symphony Orchestra performed the Symphony No. 2. Even then, my co-graduate student’s wife, who was a music major at Ohio State University, remarked, cheekily perhaps, that “it was too long.” I now confess that it wasn’t until I watched Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir win the Ice Dance gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics skating to the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony, that I began to see that his music is not at all impenetrable as I once thought it was.

After writing my reflections on the way Chopin’s Nocturne Op 48 No.1 evoked the agony of Gethsamane I began searching for a musical composition that explicitly centred on Resurrection Sunday or Easter, beyond Handel’s familiar “Hallelujah Chorus.” So it was that I returned to Mahler and his Symphony No.2 “The Resurrection.” This music is so named because  Mahler’s inspiration were the first two stanzas of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s 1758 poem, “Die Auferstehung” (The Resurrection), which reads:

Here is a brief overview of the movements and their narrative intent:

• I. Allegro maestoso. In C-minor, this movement is a funeral rite.
• II. Andante con moto. In A-flat Major, this evokes a memory of happiness.
• III. Scherzo. Back to C-minor, this movement represents the senselessness of life.
• IV. Urlicht. In D-flat Major, it is a shift to faith in God. The lyrics of the Alto’s solo. “I am from God and will return to God” is from a collection of German folk poems: Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
• V. Finale. The Judgement Day and the Resurrection.

I will focus on the Finale.

The Friday of the Soul: C-Minor and the Grave

To grasp the magnitude of Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, one must first appreciate the significance of C-minor. In the Western musical tradition, C-minor frequently embodies the themes of relentless fate and mortal struggle. For instance, as I wrote last week, Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 48, No. 1 ensnares the soul in a suffocating cycle of grief. It offers fleeting moments of hope expressed through the E-flat and D-flat major tonalities, only for the weight of C-minor to pull the melody back to earth. Chopin’s Nocturne depicts the “Friday” of the tomb as an enduring reality.

Mahler’s Second Symphony starts in a similarly dim C-minor landscape. In contrast to Chopin’s Nocturne, the C-minor grave of Mahler’s symphony is not a final destination but a crucial threshold. To do this, Mahler’s Finale begins with tonal violence, famously known as the “Death Shriek,” a dissonant orchestral eruption that signals the collapse of the worldly order. This embodies the ultimate “Friday” terror; the music does not merely lament death but vividly illustrates the physical destruction of the universe. This destruction sets the stage for the rebirth, the coming back to life.

The Great Transformation: Dismantling the Old Law

As the dust of this opening explosion settles, Mahler introduces the “Old Law” through the Dies Irae. This medieval plainchant for the dead appears in the heavy sound of the brass, section a stark, descending C-minor melody that feels as cold and rigid as stone. Here, the “pathos” is at its peak. Like the Chopin Nocturne, the music seems anchored to the ground by the sheer weight of its own history. But not this time.

Mahler gradually transforms the descending, minor-key intervals of the “Day of Wrath” by inverting them. The melody, which once drew the listener downwards toward the grave, is reshaped into an ascending, hopeful sequence that ultimately uplifts. When the transformation is completed, we immediately hear the “Great Call,” the off-stage brass fanfares that summon the four corners of the earth. The “Great Call” breaks the gravity of the C-minor tonality, ultimately finding the bright and expansive E-flat Major tonality.

Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ acts like a cosmic Easter. It turns Chopin’s sorrowful C-minor prayer into a vast and bright sea of E-flat major light.

The Misterioso: A Breath of Eternal Life

Following the “Great Call,” an absolute silence ensues. The “Misterioso” section commences, with the choir entering pianississimo, producing a sound so delicate it resembles a breath of air in an expansive space. As the choir softly intones “Aufersteh’n” (Rise again), the music sheds its mortal weight. We are no longer confined to the “enclosed room” of Chopin’s grief; instead, we find ourselves in a realm where the tomb’s walls have simply vanished.

These are the lyrics Mahler himself wrote and added to Klopstock’s poem to emphasize this turning point:

The Sunday of Resurrection: Arrival in E-Flat

The symphony reaches its zenith as it embraces the final tonality of E-flat major, evoking an expansive sea of light. With the introduction of the pipe organ and resonant bells, the music reaches a majestic conclusion, symbolizing a return to “The Home We Forgot.” It is the sound of the soul resurrected in unimaginable joy. The E-flat major does not overlook the preceding C-minor anguish; rather, it integrates it, illustrating that the suffering was merely the labour pains of this final, radiant birth.

Ultimately, Mahler’s “Resurrection” serves as a cosmic Day of Resurrection, transforming the blood-stained prayer of Chopin’s C-minor Nocturne into a vast sea of E-flat major light. It represents the final, radiant release from the grave’s pathos, a musical promise that the tomb’s weight is merely a fleeting shadow before the eternal, soaring triumph of Easter, the Day of Resurrection.

All glory to God.