Mahler: Symphony No. 2

The Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, a World Heritage site and one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, was the setting for an unforgettable performance of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony, the "Resurrection Symphony," with Gustavo Dudamel and the Munich Philharmonic. In this overwhelming work, the composer highlights life and death in all their terrifying and magnificent splendor: "My two symphonies exhaust the content of my whole life; I have set down in them what I have experienced and suffered, truth and poetry in sound," Mahler himself noted about his musical credo after the performance of the Resurrection Symphony. Gustavo Dudamel and his ensemble were frenetically celebrated by the audience with more than ten minutes of applause. Mezzosoprano Tamara Mumford and soprano Chen Reiss, as well as the seemingly weightless choirs of the Orfeó Català and Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana, performed "a bone-chilling finale that gave one goosebumps" (Münchner Merkur). "The dynamic range is enormous. But the most fascinating moments are those of absolute silence, because that is when you can feel the dramaturgy of the evening come together: an audience holding its breath." (Süddeutsche Zeitung).