Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor 'Resurrection' – Antoni Wit, Naxos (2CD)

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Product Details

• UPC: 4891030505230
• Catalogue Number: 8.550523-4
• Brand/Label: Naxos
• Composer: Gustav Mahler
• Performers: Hanna Lisowska, soprano · Jadwiga Rappé, alto
• Chorus: Cracow Radio & TV Choir (Choirmaster: Malgorzata Orawska)
• Ensemble: Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (Katowice)
• Conductor: Antoni Wit
• Release Year: 1993 (recorded 9–17 January 1993)
• Genre: Classical – Symphony (Choral)
• Country of Producing: [confirm] (this section of the back cover is covered by a sticker in the provided photos)

Product Features

• Format: 2 Audio CDs, DDD (fully digital recording), Stereo
• Total playing time: 85:21
• Cover artwork: The Yearning for Happiness, by Gustav Klimt

Overview

The "Resurrection" Symphony is Mahler at full scale and full ambition — a nearly 90-minute journey from a funeral march to a choral vision of redemption, requiring soloists, chorus, and a massively expanded orchestra by the finale. The opening movement alone runs over 20 minutes and was originally conceived as a standalone tone poem before Mahler built four further movements around it, ultimately arriving at a fifth-movement finale ("Im Tempo des Scherzo") that runs a full 35 minutes and stages the symphony's title literally — resurrection and judgment, set to Mahler's own text alongside Klopstock's poem. Antoni Wit conducts the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra with the scale this music demands, and Hanna Lisowska and Jadwiga Rappé bring real presence to their solo passages in the closing movements without disappearing into the chorus. Recorded across nine days at the Concert Hall of Polish Radio in Katowice, this is a genuinely ambitious undertaking rendered at Naxos's characteristic value, and a strong way to experience one of the cornerstone works of the late-Romantic symphonic repertoire.

Interesting Facts

• The symphony's massive fifth movement runs approximately 35 minutes on its own, longer than many complete symphonies by other composers.
• The opening movement was originally composed as an independent tone poem, "Totenfeier" ("Funeral Rites"), before Mahler expanded it into the first movement of a full symphony.
• The choral finale sets both Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's resurrection ode and additional text written by Mahler himself.
• The cover artwork uses Gustav Klimt's "The Yearning for Happiness," part of the Beethoven Frieze, echoing the same fin-de-siècle Vienna artistic world Mahler worked within.
• This recording was made across nine days in January 1993, reflecting the substantial scale and rehearsal demands of performing Mahler's Second with full orchestra, chorus, and soloists.

Track Listing

CD 1

1. I. Allegro maestoso. Mit durchaus ernstem und feierlichem Ausdruck – 21:38
2. II. Andante moderato. Sehr gemächlich – 10:42

CD 2

1. III. In ruhig fließender Bewegung – 10:54
2. IV. Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht – 6:09
3. V. Im Tempo des Scherzo. Wild herausfahrend – 35:51

Publishers

Naxos, part of the Naxos Music Group, recorded at the Concert Hall of Polish Radio, Katowice (producer Beata Jankowska, engineer Otto Nopp, music notes Keith Anderson).

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