Mahler's 'Resurrection' with the voices of Lydia Teuscher and Mihoko Fujimura

Gustav Mahler composed his Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Auferstehung (Resurrection) between 1888 and 1894. It was a single-movement symphonic poem of a mournful nature. Years later, in 1903, he revised it and added four new movements, which turned the piece into a monumental symphonic construction which not only dealt with death but also with the memory of happiness, faith and resurrection in the hands of God through love. The 80-minute piece can be heard on 27, 28 and 29 May at L'Auditori, in a performance by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC) and the Orfeó Català. It will be conducted by Kazushi Ono, who has been the OBC's music director since 2015, and will feature the Freiburg (Germany) soprano Lydia Teuscher and the Japanese mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura as guest voices.

Among the singularities of the composition is the fact that, for the first time, Mahler used texts from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder (The boy's magic horn: old German songs), a book from 1805 with traditional German poems and songs that, from then on, would be a great source of inspiration for the Bohemian composer. Musically, Mahler started from the arrangement of his first symphony, Titan, and broadened his horizons with the addition of soloists and chorus, which would later become a regular feature in his symphonies. The premiere of Resurrection was on 4 March 1895 in Berlin, performed by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Mahler himself.

You can find more information and the tickets at this link.