Bravo V: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, The Resurrection

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This evening’s concert is generously sponsored by:

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Complimentary wine at intermission provided by:

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Program

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Resurrection

1. Allegro maestoso
2. Andante moderato
3. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung
4. Urlicht
5. Im Tempo des Scherzo

Kisma Jordan, Soprano
Catherine Keen, Mezzo-Soprano
The Mississippi Chorus
Millsaps Singers
Mississippi College Singers

 

• Catherine Keen
• Kisma Jordan

Catherine Keen

Acclaimed for her rich, opulent voice, American mezzo-soprano Catherine Keen appears regularly with many of the most prestigious opera companies of North America and Europe.  Trained as an Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera, she has returned regularly to that company, showing off her versatility as an actress and as a musician, in a variety of roles including Fricka in Die Walkuere, Giulietta in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Kundry in Parsifal, and Venus in Tannhäuser, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly . 

Her international career was launched in performances of the title role of Samson et Dalila at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, a role which she has performed subsequently at the Netherlands Opera.  With that company she also has appeared  in Luisa Miller, Otello and Wagner's Ring Cycle. 

Operatic engagements of recent seasons also have included Tannhäuser at the Royal Danish Opera, Luisa Miller with the Grand Théâtre de Genèvre, Samson et Dalila at the Florida Grand Opera and Washington Opera, her Italian debut as Amneris in Aida and Fenena in Nabucco at the Arena di Verona, Aida with the Houston Grand Opera, and the role of Cornelia in Washington Opera's presentation of Giulio Cesare. 

Ms. Keen enjoys a rich collaborative relationship with the Cincinnati Symphony having performed a wide range of repertoire from de Falla's El Amor Brujo and Wagner's Wesendonk Lieder to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Schubert's Rosamunde.  With the Symphony and James Conlon she has sung Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and Das Lied von der Erde and she has assayed the role of Brangäne in concert performances of Tristan und Isolde under the direction of Jesus López-Cobos.  With Donald Runnicles, she has sung Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde in Paris and Symphony No. 8 at the Edinburgh Festival,  and Dresden.

Most recently Ms Keen performed the role of Kundry opposite the Parsifal of Plácido Domingo, and Herodias in Salome at the Washington Opera, Rigoletto and Samson et Dalila at San Francisco Opera, The Rape of Lucretia at Seville's Teatro de la Maestranza, Aida at The Hollywood Bowl, Die Walkuere in Madrid, Samson et Dalila in Lithuania, and  Madama Butterfly (which has recently been released on DVD) with the Netherlands Opera,  Suor Angelica and Madama Butterfly with Los Angeles Opera, the role of Preziosilla in La Forza del Destino  and Beethoven's SYMPHONY No.9, Federica in Luisa Miller with James Conlon and the Cincinnati May Festival and Mahler's Symphony No.8 with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival.

Kisma Jordan

Soprano Kisma Jordan is emerging as one of the country's most luminous talents, sharing her ever-increasing gifts with audiences nationwide. At home on the opera stage as well as in concert and recital, she has been recognized for her communicative ability and "shimmering soprano voice," as noted by music critic Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times.

Ms. Jordan's 2008-2009 season featured concert appearances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (debut) led by Resident Conductor Thomas Wilkins, as well as the Lima Symphony Orchestra.  Additionally, in July she performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and conductor David Alan Miller in the annual Salute to America Concert Series at Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford.

In spring of 2008, she made her debut with the Michigan Opera Theatre in their production of Puccini's La Rondine.  In 2007, Jordan performed the role of Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the New Jersey Opera Summer Festival, being acclaimed as having "solid control over a voice which soared through Mozart's music, her deliverance of character had sensitivity and warmth." She later triumphed as a winner in the Great Lakes District of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Kisma Jordan received a personal invitation from renowned American Mezzo-Soprano Marilyn Horne to participate in the Song Continues...2006 master class and recital festival, presented by the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall.  In the fall of 2006, she made her recital debut in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Artist-in-Resident at The Academy of Vocal Arts, where performances included the role of Ännchen in Weber's Der Freischütz.  Other notable opera roles are Aurora in the North American premiere of Francesco Cavalli's Gli Amore D' Apollo e di Daphne and Celié in Pasatieri's Signor Deluso. 

Among the honors and awards that Ms. Jordan has received are the Tuesday Musical Association's Gertrude Marta Pflaum Scholarship for Voice, first place and Audience Choice Award winner of the 39th annual Bowling Green State University Competitions in Music Performance, and first place winner of the Lima Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Ms. Jordan holds degrees in vocal performance from Kentucky State University and Bowling Green State University.

Notes by Lynn Raley

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection"
The massive work that you will have the privilege of experiencing tonight was one of Mahler's most popular works during his lifetime, but its premiere was not a successful one. It is a work that provokes passionate reaction, both for and against, not least because of its sheer length. Cast in five movements and lasting ninety minutes, it is a work of extreme emotion and deep spirituality. Its closing moments leave few unaffected. Bruno Walter's account in 1901:

The triumph grew greater with every moment. Such enthusiasm is seen only once in a lifetime! Afterwards, I saw grown men weeping and youths falling on each other's necks. And when the Bird of Death, hovering above the graves, utters his last, long drawn-out call-Mahler said he himself was afraid for a moment that the long unbroken silence, requiring, as it were, the whole audience to hold its breath, could not possibly come off-there was such a deathly silence in the hall that no one seemed able to bat so much as an eyelid. And when the chorus entered, everyone gave a shuddering sigh of relief. It was indescribable!

Mahler was already a famous composer when he began work on his Second Symphony. It actually began life as a one-movement symphonic tone poem, entitled Todtenfeier ("Funeral Rites"), which Mahler composed in 1888 and performed a number of times as a stand-alone work.

Our twenty-first century ears often fail to grasp the radical import of works first heard in the nineteenth. Here is Mahler's own account of the day he showed Todtenfeier to conductor Hans von Bülow for the first time:

When Bülow saw how complicated the score was, he urged me to play it for him instead: "At least I will hear it in an authentic concept..." I played. It occurred to me to glance at Bülow, and I see that he is holding both hands over his ears. I stop playing. Bülow, who is standing at the window, notices at once and urges me to continue. I play. After a little while I turn around again. Bülow is sitting at the table holding his ears. The whole scene is repeated: I stop playing, again he urges me to continue. I go ahead, and all kinds of thoughts pass through my mind: perhaps Bülow, who is a piano virtuoso [he gave the premiere of Tchaikovsky's First Concerto in Boston on October 25, 1875] does not like my playing style or my touch, perhaps my forte is too passionate or too heavy-handed. I remember that Bülow is extremely nervous and often complains of headaches. But I play on without interruption, without paying attention to anything else; I may even have forgotten that Bülow was present. When I had finished, I awaited the verdict silently. But my older listener remained long at the table, silent and motionless Suddenly he made an energetic gesture of rejection and said: "If that is still music, then I do not understand a single thing about music." We parted from each other in complete friendship-I, however, with the conviction that Bülow considers me an able conductor but absolutely hopeless as a composer.

In a subsequent letter Mahler added, "Bülow became quite hysterical with horror, declaring that, compared with my music, Tristan was a Haydn symphony, and he went on like a madman."

Although at times this music does flirt with the limits of tonality, Mahler's highly personal musical language remains the language of Romanticism. In 1910 Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Gabriel Pierné all walked out during a performance in Paris ("reactionary," they said, and "too much like Schubert"). By then, music was already moving in a very different direction. Mahler's music was not to gain true popular success until the 1960s, when Leonard Bernstein led a revival of the symphonies. Until then, Mahler had been widely viewed as a second-rate composer.

In 1893 Mahler decided to make Todtenfeier part of a larger work, adding a second and third movement. The first three movements were performed in March of 1895. Mahler used as a third movement the song Urlicht, one of his most beautiful songs, set to St. Anthony of Padua's "Sermon to the Fishes" in the German folk poem Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Boy's Magic Horn").

Urlicht
     Primeval Light 

O Röschen roth!
     O little red rose!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Noth!
      Humankind lies in greatest need!
Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!
     Humankind lies in greatest pain!
Je lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein.
     Oh how I would rather be in heaven!
 
Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg;
     There, I came onto a broad path;
Da kam ein Engelein
     There came a little angel
und wollt' mich abweisen.
     who wanted to turn me away.
Ach nein! Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!
     But no! I would not be turned away!
 

Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott!
     I am from God and will return to God!
Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben,
     Dear God will give me a little light,
Wird leuchten mir bis in das ewig selig Leben!
     Will light me to eternal, blissful life!
 
Mahler had accepted the post of conductor of the Hamburg Opera in 1891. Hans von Bülow was then conductor of the symphony in Hamburg. Despite his initial reaction to Todtenfeier, von Bülow, not known for his generosity of spirit, was impressed with the young man's talent, and they soon became fast friends. When Bülow began to have serious health problems, Mahler substituted for him at the symphony. Bülow's death in 1894 was devastating to Mahler. Significantly, it was at Bülow's funeral that he found the solution for the last movement. He wrote to conductor Anton Seidl: 

I had long contemplated bringing in the choir in the last movement, and only the fear that it would be taken as a formal imitation of Beethoven made me hesitate again and again. Then Bülow died, and I went to the memorial service. The mood in which I sat and pondered on the departed was utterly in the spirit of what I was working on at the time. - Then the choir, up in the organ loft, intoned Klopstock's Resurrection chorale. - It flashed on me like lightning, and everything became plain and clear in my mind! It was the flash that all creative artists wait for - "conceived by the Holy Ghost!" What I then experienced had now to be expressed in sound. And yet - if I had not already borne the work within me - how could I have had that experience

Die Auferstehung
     The Resurrection
 
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
     Rise again, yes, you will rise again,                    
Wirst du,
     My dust,
Mein Staub, Nach kurzer Ruh'!
     after brief rest!
Unsterblich Leben! Unsterblich Leben
     Immortal life! Immortal life! Will He who
wird der dich rief dir geben!
     called you grant you!
 
Wieder aufzublüh'n wirst du gesät!
     To bloom again were you sown!
Der Herr der Ernte geht          
     The Lord of the harvest goes
und sammelt Garben
     And gathers like sheaves,
uns ein, die starben!
     Us who died.
  
O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube:
     O believe, my heart, O believe:
Es geht dir nichts verloren!
     Nothing will be lost to you!
Dein ist, Dein, ja dein, was du gesehnt!
     Yours is what you longed for,
Dein, was du geliebt, Was du gestritten!
     What you fought for!
 
O glaube:
     O believe:
Du wardst nicht umsonst geboren!
     You were not born in vain!
Hast nicht umsonst gelitten!
     You have not lived in vain, nor suffered!
 
Was entstanden ist,
     All that has come into being
Das muß vergehen!
     must perish!
Was vergangen, auferstehen!
     All that has perished must rise again!
Hör' auf zu beben!
     Cease from trembling!
Bereite dich zu leben!
     Prepare to live!
 
O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!
     O Pain, piercer of all things!
Dir bin ich entrungen!
     From you I have been wrested!
O Tod! Du Allbezwinger!
     O Death, conqueror of all things!
Nun bist du bezwungen!          
     Now you are conquered!
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen,
     With wings, which I won for myself
In heißem Liebesstreben,
     In love's ardent struggle,
Werd'ich entschweben
     I shall fly upwards
Zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug'gedrungen!
     To that light which no eye has penetrated!
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen
     With wings, which I won for myself
Werde ich entschweben.          
     I shall fly upwards.
Sterben werd'ich, um zu leben!
     I shall die so as to live.
 
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
     Rise again, yes, you will rise again,
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
     My heart, in the twinkling of an eye!
Was du geschlagen
     What you have conquered
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!
     Will bear you to God!

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