Mahler Symphony No 2 (The Resurrection)

Written between 1888 and 1894 and first performed in 1895, the Resurrection Symphony was Mahler's first major work that marks the beginning of what was to become his lifelong exploration of the beauty of the afterlife and resurrection.

Mahler devised a narrative programme for the work, which he told to a number of friends; the first movement represents a funeral and asks questions such as "Is there life after death?"; the second movement is a remembrance of happy times in the life of the deceased; the third movement shows life as a meaningless activity; the fourth movement is a wish for release from life without meaning; and the fifth choral movement, after a return of the doubts of the third movement and the questions of the first, ends with a fervent hope for everlasting, transcendent renewal, a theme that Mahler would ultimately transfigure into the music of his sublime Das Lied von der Erde.