NOSPR / Alsop / Polish National Youth Choir / Mahler’s "Resurrection" Symphony - NOSPR
NOSPR / Alsop / Polish National Youth Choir / Mahler’s "Resurrection" Symphony
A symphony as a world in its own right, a whole separate cosmos – this is a very Mahlerian idea. A symphony is a separate entity in the metaphysical sense, yet it is simultaneously also a world oddly related to our intuition, a world in which questions very close to human existence are asked. Gustav Mahler forms the questions on our behalf: “Why are we alive? Why do we suffer? Is all this some enormous, terrible joke? – We must answer these questions somehow, if we are to live on – nay, if we are but to die! Someone who has heard this call, even if only once in their lifetime, must find an answer. And it is this answer that I give in the final movement. The second and the third movement are to serve as an interlude, the second one is a memory! A ray of sunlight, clear and cloudless, beaming from the hero’s life.”
The Resurrection title of the 2nd Symphony is not due to Mahler, and the piece is not a manifestation of Christian faith. The composer’s answer is more universalist than ecumenical in its spirit. It gives hope for a spiritual cleansing and redemption, although it is a voice coming from a human being torn by contradictions and doubt – as most of us are. It leads from ceremonies of mourning to sublime choral singing with words by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and the composer himself – a conclusion which brings hope: “Life immortal shall be given to you by Him who has called you thereto.”
Andrzej Sułek
Upcoming events

Concert on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki's birth
Concert Hall
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Mozart and oboes / postponed
Chamber Hall