Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony

Dame Sarah Connolly DBE and Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, 2021’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, lend their voices to this performance of Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony.

Mahler’s Second Symphony was one of his most successful works during his lifetime. Inspired in part by the death of his colleague and friend Hans von Bülow, the symphony is the composer’s tribute to his life-long ideals of the beauty of resurrection and the afterlife.

It was at Bülow’s funeral that Mahler heard the Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock hymn Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection), the refrain of which is ‘Rise again, yes, you shall rise again my dust’. These words, combined with Mahler’s own verses, provide the text for the symphony’s fifth and final movement, written for soloists and chorus combined, and probably the greatest depictions of redemption and renewal in all music. Under the baton of Kahchun Wong, this promises to be a truly memorable experience.

6.30pm in the auditorium – Choral Director Matthew Hamilton and members of the Hallé Choir discuss tonight’s programme.