Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2

Leon Botstein Music Director
Sungyeun Kim soprano
Joanne Evans mezzo

The Bard Conservatory Orchestra with members of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), soloists from the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program, Bard College Chamber Singers, Bard Festival Chorale, Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and James Bagwell, choral director

Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, which he composed over the span of nearly seven years emerged as one of his most powerful and successful compositions. When he began writing it in 1888, at age 28, he had no idea of the overall structure or how it would end; the process of discovery—and self-discovery—that unfolded during this time pondering issues no less weighty than the meaning of life and death. The conclusion was a particular problem and the solution proved something of a revelation: a choral finale setting the “Resurrection” poem by the 18th-century German writer Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, which Mahler adapted with his own words. What became known as the “Resurrection” Symphony is one of the longest, most ambitious, and profoundly moving orchestral works ever composed.