Mahler's Resurrection

In the colossal Resurrection symphony, Gustav Mahler sets out from the vast orchestral ensemble used on Titan to broaden it with the introduction of the human voice, with the use of soloists and choir, a feature that would be characteristic of his later symphonies. It is also the first work in which Mahler uses texts from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder (The Youth’s Magic Horn: Old German Songs), a set of traditional German poems and songs compiled in 1805 which became an inexhaustible source of resources for his production.
The symphony was initially conceived as a single-movement symphonic poem of a funereal nature. Later, in the wake of the death of the conductor Hans von Bülow, the composer introduced four more movements to erect a monumental symphonic construction on death, the memory of happiness, the loss and recovery of faith, and finally the resurrection through love in the hands of God.