Mahler – Symphony No. 2 | Daniel Harding | Bavarian Radio Choir & BRSO:
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, known as the ‘Resurrection Symphony’, performed by the Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Harding. Recorded live on 27 September 2018 at the Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich.

UPDATE 28 May 2026: I prefer this performance from 2018 with the same Orchestra and Chorus, but in Munich in 2018 and in a different concert hall and with Daniel Harding conducting. You can compare the two performances for yourself. In this case, since the superb Orchestra and Chorus are the same in both, it really comes down to the conductors and their differing interpretations especially in the Finale, as well as production’s work. The recording audio is brighter and better in the Munich performance, I think. The mic’s picked up the — I’ll call it — the low “Russian bass” sound better in the basses of the Chorus where the other recording (Rattle) didn’t pick that up as well. Daniel also conducts the Finale faster than Simon. This article was written based on the performance conducted by Simon Rattle. It wasn’t until after I posted it that I found the performance conducted by Daniel Harding, so I pulled the article to update it.

“The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is a German radio orchestra. Based in Munich, Germany, it is one of the city’s four orchestras. The BRSO is one of two full-size symphony orchestras operated under the auspices of Bayerischer Rundfunk, or Bavarian Broadcasting.”

Yet in the US, the so-called “greatest country” (eye roll) — why does there have to be a “greatest country” when many countries are “great” — the United States of North America has nothing like this.  There is no public broadcasting networks with their own Orchestra and Chorus and in this case both Orchestra and Chorus are superb, absolutely outstanding.  They match each other beautifully. In fact, in the US, federal funding for public media in the so-called “greatest country” has been gutted/eliminated under the fraudulent “Make ‘America’ Great Again” scheme/juvenile Cult with their childish fist-pumping fascist moronic dictator, who, like most fake-Christian, utterly corrupt trash in politics, campaigned on one thing and then did the opposite.

Finding a good performance on YT of this piece from a symphonic choral perspective — which the performance above from Hamburg is — has been difficult, but I can highly recommend this performance from the Bavarian Radio Choir (prepared by Simon Rattle) and BRSO.  Live aufgenommen am 21. März 2026 in der Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

It’s interesting that Simon is now working as a Chorus Director as well as orchestral conductor.  That’s the same as what the Dean of Choral Music, Robert Shaw, did with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.  Shaw prepared both the Orchestra and Chorus.  But on occasion, Norman MacKenzie (the piano accompanist) also helped prepare the ASOC.  Upon Shaw’s death, Norman became the Director of Choral Activities for the ASO.

Simon Rattle started out as conductor of The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the UK, and another Simon (Simon Halsey) has been the Chorus Director for the CBSO Chorus since 1983.  I think Halsey has also prepared most of the Choruses in the EU at one time or another, and now Rattle is a Chorus Director as well.  Well, based on this performance and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis from the superb Bavarian ensembles, Simon Rattle knows his choral music.  The same cannot be said about all orchestral conductors, some of whom are not that good at working with a Chorus.

For this performance, I’ve listened more to the two gorgeous hushed sections than I have the Finale.  I can’t imagine those sections being sung any better.

I don’t remember much about my one-time experience in working with Antal Doráti in the Kennedy Center.  I don’t remember finding him difficult to follow, not that he wasn’t difficult to follow.

I do remember one performance where The Washington Post was a bit critical of his conducting the Brahms’s EDR.  It was a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Chorus in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.  The problem the first night was that the Maryland Chorus couldn’t follow Doráti’s opening vague beat at the text, “Selig sind.”  I was at all of those performances (three consecutive) and the first night I assumed that Dr. Traver or Doráti wanted quiet consonants, but that wasn’t the case at all as it turned out.  Apparently, the Chorus didn’t know where to put the “t” consonant of “sind” based on Doráti’s vague beat.  If Traver had been conducting there would have been no problem.  But since Doráti was conducting, the opening tempo was a bit muddy.  The WP music reviewer said that “the University of Maryland Chorus is known for their diction so it was not the Chorus who was at fault, but rather Doráti.”  Well, apparently Traver and/or Doráti read that review because the next night that entrance was perfect and there was a very audible “t” on “sind.”

As for this piece, when I was training at the Conservatory, I went with some friends to the Kennedy Center one night and that’s when I noticed that the University of Maryland Chorus performed regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra.  I said to myself:  Well, they must be quite good to practically be the official Chorus of the NSO.  It made me question whether I should transfer to the University of Maryland because our Conservatory Chorus was not performing with the NSO.  Well, nobody else’s was either.  For that season, the Maryland Chorus was performing Mahler’s Symphonie No. 2 (“The Resurrection”), Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Symphonie No. 9.

Then in another season, I heard them perform the Mahler with (I think) the NSO, so I summed up that these three pieces were Maryland’s signature pieces.  Beethoven’s Ninth certainly was or ended up being, if not the other two pieces as well.

As I’ve written before, I think Deutschland has the best Orchestra Choruses these days with the finest of choral excellence.  I wish I could say the same about some of the Choruses in the US who don’t seem clear on the concept of one of the foundations of choral excellence:  New England Conservatory and Boston University’s Symphonic Chorus come to mind.  And the Tanglewood Festival Chorus as well, although I’ve not heard them under James Burton.  But someone online told me that they sound just like they did when I was writing critically of them.

My choral friend asked:  In this symphonie we hear in this performance the velvety and exquisite sound of this Chorus in the quiet sections, then the vocal soloist comes in with a completely different sound.  She sounds like a siren on an emergency vehicle passing by.  She ruins the moment.  Why didn’t they use one of the choristers to sing that solo passage or why didn’t the soloist use her trained chorister voice?  This piece is not opera.

I said:  Well, I completely agree with you.  This is not opera; there is no costuming or scenery which are two of the requirements for opera.  Mahler never wrote an opera but unfortunately he considered his symphonies as “symphonies for the mind that should contain everything.”  I guess that everything meant screaming and to clash with the velvety sound coming from the Bavarian Radio Choir.  But this piece is not along.  With most symphonic choral works, the same thing happens.  The Chorus can sound similar to the BR Choir and then in comes a soprano vocal soloist and ruins the whole thing.  She doesn’t at all try to match the sound of the Chorus.  At full volume, her voice could overpower everyone on stage and sometimes it does.

My choral friend watched the choral parts of the Mahler 2nd with me.  Does the audience know how difficult it is for this Chorus to sing in a hushed manner, especially  whilst being seated?  He said:  Of course not.  And they don’t care about that.  They’re just there for the music and most couldn’t care less about how the music is produced.  He is correct.  Most people would find any details about the performance boring.  Just as they would find the technique used by the strings for pedal point absolutely boring.

Most people go to “the Symphony” as they call it, for status purposes, and to try to impress someone they know, or to be out with friends.  Most people would be quite comfortable just listening to a CD of a performance at home.  And looking at the faces of many in the audience, they should have done that.  They looked utterly bored just listening to/watching this performance.  One wonders why they bothered to show up?

For those who care (all 2 of you):  The very quiet sections for the Chorus are It’s very difficult because singing quietly and beautifully is not easy and in this instance the Chorus has to stay perfectly in-tune and on pitch (well they have to do that regardless) — without going sharp or flat — so that they are perfectly in tune with the Orchestra when the Orchestra comes back in after the choral section.  Yeah I know, a big YAWN.  Most couldn’t care less.

The only live performance of this piece — where I was in the Concert Hall audience — was in the Kennedy Center.  In that performance, the National Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Chorus were conducted by Antal Doráti.

One of the commenters under the video was saying how emotionless the people in the hall seemed to be.  Yes, especially that lobotomised-looking woman sitting on the first row to the right of the BR Choir.  She absolutely refused to look at the Choir the entire time, even when they were performing.  One wonders why she was there?

I noticed the “bells up” with the French Horn players in the finale.  Is that in the score like that or was that Simon Rattle’s idea.  Some French Horn musicians are not all that hot on the “bells up” thing.  I think they consider it tacky.

I noticed the First Concertmaster and his bouncing around in the finale.  He reminded me of the many pianists of today who feel the need to needlessly bounce around on the piano bench.  It’s all theatrics as no one needs to bounce around when they’re playing.  The Second Concertmaster and some of the other string players were bouncing as well.  But I suspect most of the string musicians were quite tired after this performance considering the fast and repetitive bowing required for this piece.

And of course I’ll make my usual comments about the female vocal soloists.  Here in 2026, there’s still this sexist tradition where female vocalists think they have to show up half naked exposing their cleavage and/or upper chest, as if it’s hot in the hall or something.  Either that, or they get overheated when they sing/scream, sounding like a siren on an emergency vehicle in some cases.  My choral friend can’t stand them and compares them to a jet engine.  And how they don’t even begin to try to match the sound of the Chorus.  Instead, they scream over the Orchestra and Chorus.

As for male performance attire, male soloists are required to show up all covered up like a monk.

The women in the Orchestra were not trying to “sex up” the performance by showing up like that.

To be clear:  I have no problem with nudity or with “showing skin” or with seeing a nude human body and that’s not the point I’m making.   I’m merely pointing out the double-standard, the hypocrisy between the genders per this silly classical music tradition and what’s required.  There are so many silly and ludicrous traditions that make no sense to thinking people in the classical music field.  Why can’t the male soloists show up on stage in a high-end looking tank top or the equivalent where they show as much “skin” and chest as the females?  If they were to do so, they would immediately be asked to go back to their hotel room and “change into something more appropriate.”  And a complaint would later be filed with their artist management, “He showed up here half naked.”  Of course the female vocal soloists are never told that.  Again, some of these silly traditions of the classical music field to “sex up” a performance make absolutely no sense.  Related:  She comes out half-naked.  What if a guy did the same?

Why does there have to be a “Best ever?”  And how would one intelligently determine that?

That’s like me saying that the University of Maryland Chorus was the “best ever.”  I’d never say that because I’ve not heard all other Choruses in the world — recorded or not — to make such a judgment.

But that doesn’t stop the sheeple and their “best ever” mentality in the video comments.  That seems to be the case with simple minds and people pretending to know something about music when they don’t.  I find them very annoying.  And of course there were the extreme comments under the video, such as “Best symphony ever.”  And how can they say that when they’ve not heard all composed symphonies ever?  These extreme people write the same extreme comments about other topics.  “Best pianist ever.”  So extreme.  Well, they can’t accurately say that either because they’ve not heard all pianists ever — recorded or not — to make such an insane judgment.  For example, they’ve not heard one of the piano professors I studied with at the Conservatory.  She could have been a concert artist but chose to go into academia and served as the Chair of the Keyboard Department at a major university’s School of Music.

I’m told the extremists do the same on sex sites with so and so having the best [name of body part] ever!  Even though the over-the-top commenter has not seen all the people on the site and their body parts to make such a ridiculous judgment.

And of course there was the conductor worshipping in the comments, as if Simon Rattle were the only musician on stage and played the orchestral, choral, pipe organ and vocal soloists role all by himself.  Insanity.

It’s also similar to the draft-dodging far-right nationalistic “maga” trash that love to engage in childish fist-pumping and call the US “the hottest country ever.”  Just do a little bit of travelling around the world with an open mind and you’ll see what a foolish statement that is.  The insane US dictator, that piece of LOSER shit in the white house, says how the US is the “hottest country” now.  No need to respond to that.  Consider the source.  One can’t fix stupid so don’t bother trying.

There were some people who came to this performance in Hamburg who probably should have stayed home and listened to a CD of a performance of the Mahler.  There was this woman sitting directly behind that woman I mentioned earlier who didn’t look at the Choir the entire performance.  The woman behind her turned her body and watched the Choir in the quiet sections.  But when the Choir stood and began the Finale section she turned her body and looked straight ahead but unfortunately found something terribly funny from then on and and seemed to be laughing almost uncontrollable throughout the Finale when the camera showed her at a distance.  She looked like she was about to slap the armrest with laughter because she found something so funny.  She seemed to be trying to get the woman next to her to join her in the laughter but she wasn’t able to.  So what was funny?  There’s nothing funny about Mahler’s Symphonie No. 2.

By the way, looking at the Bavarian Radio Choir from the podium, their seating arrangement was ABST (altos on the far left, followed by the basses, then the soprano section and then the tenor section on the far right closest to the audience).

Also, as the Choir stood for the Finale, I noticed extra French Horn players filed onto the stage on the sides and joined the rest of the BR Orchestra, they played standing and they used the “bells up” technique.

Someone in the comments asked about the pipe organ in the hall.  The pipes are in a unique place.  The pipe organ could have been much louder; I didn’t hear it at all although I saw the organist at the black console.  I guess he played the volume level Simon asked for.  I don’t know what the score says about the organ volume level.

My choral friend pointed out how fast the double basses were bowing in the Finale, especially near the very end, something he’d not seen before.  I had not seen that either.  All of the string section was probably exhausted after this performance from the bowing, including the pedal point bowing.

This was an excellent performance — both Orchestra and Chorus — and their production crew did an excellent job of recording it.  I appreciated their attentiveness to the superb BR Choir.