Is it something in the water? Or is it simply that triumph over adversity sells in today’s uncertain world? Whatever the reason, Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony has already received four major UK performances this year: a season finale for the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, a season opener for both the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, and an 80th season celebratory concert for the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Next month the London City Orchestra perform it in Croydon’s Fairfield Halls.
On disc, the field of Mahler 2s is even more crowded. Apple Music Classical currently throws up 222 listings; Presto Music’s search engine returns 260 results, many of them complete recordings to download or buy on CD or vinyl (some of these, of course, are reissues of recognised classic accounts).
Three new recordings of the symphony are out this month alone, which will bring the total released into the UK market to an astonishing nine over just 12 months. The lineup of conductors is certainly impressive – including Kahchun Wong, Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Donald Runnicles and Paavo Järvi – but is it possible the market has reached saturation point? Or is it that we just can’t get enough of Mahler’s apocalyptic vision and the dopamine fix that accompanies the symphony’s choral finale?
The statistics clearly speak for themselves: this year there have been nine Mahler 2s released. By way of comparison, the 5th and the 8th symphonies received just four releases each in 2026; Mahler’s other symphonies even fewer.
Mahler wasn’t always popular, of course. For all sorts of reasons, not least the Nazis’ aversion to the composer in general, his works were slow to enter the catalogue. The Second was in fact the first Mahler symphony to be recorded in its entirety when Oskar Fried and a pared-back Berlin State Opera Orchestra committed it to wax cylinders during sessions in 1923 and 1924. Perhaps as few as 40 players were huddled around the acoustic horn, but Fried had been coached by the composer himself for a performance of the work in 1905, and, so, tinny as it sounds today, it carries the imprimatur of authenticity.
It was over a decade later that Eugene Ormandy and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra made the work’s second recording, captured live in 1935, this time using electrical microphones. Acoustically it was a major leap forward, and thanks to the conductor’s urgency – he’s 12 minutes faster than Fried – it still lands blows today.
Sixteen years would pass before Otto Klemperer, who as a young man had known and worked with the composer, stepped into a studio with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1951. His visceral, though boxy sounding, account was followed in 1958 by Mahler’s protege Bruno Walter who recorded the work with the New York Philharmonic. At this point we are talking one or two recordings every decade, a far cry from the current rate of almost one per month.
Klemperer’s 1962 HMV stereo version with the Philharmonia Orchestra, capturing the conductor at his most monumental, rightly remains a benchmark recording, one of several made in the 60s that would still sit on most recommended listening lists. Bernstein’s first studio recording with the New York Phil, more urgent and certainly more wilful than his 1983 Deutsche Grammophon effort, appeared in 1963 and has now been lovingly remastered. Fine accounts by Solti and the LSO and Haitink with the Concertgebouw were among half a dozen to appear across the decade, while the 70s saw the likes of Mehta, Abbado and Tennstedt enter the lists.
The digital revolution of the 80s produced a slew of new Mahler 2s (including Simon Rattle’s first attempt, which won him and the CBSO a Gramophone award), as well as first appearances on disc for some of the great performances of the past (anyone looking for the frisson of a live event should try Tennstedt’s account captured in 1989 with the London Philharmonic at the Royal Festival Hall).
The subsequent transition from expensive studio recordings to the easier option of releasing a live performance, often with patching taken from rehearsals, has become prevalent in recent decades and is partly behind this year’s boom. Indeed, none of these nine new recordings was made in a studio.
So which to listen to? Streamers today of course can take their pick, dipping into each in turn. But for collectors on a budget, the question of where best to spend your hard-earned cash is a thorny one.
Among the frontrunners, Paavo Järvi’s account with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich (released 30 October on Alpha Classics) packs a considerable creative punch. The production values are hugely impressive: just listen to the orchestra’s pristine articulation of the declamatory opening demisemiquavers on cellos and basses. Järvi’s tempi are sound, and Anna Lucia Richter is a glorious mezzo-soprano soloist. It beats Cristian Măcelaru’s muddy, monochrome version with the Orchestre National de France into a cocked hat (released last month on Naïve). Esa-Pekka Salonen’s San Francisco reading is, as would be expected, supple and clean (on SFS Media) but occasionally breathless speeds temper the drama despite a well-thought-through finale.
In the end, experience tells. That’s what makes Simon Rattle’s interpretation with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (released on 2 October on BR Klassik) so rewarding. Forty years on from his CBSO recording for EMI, Rattle is now a more spontaneous and organic beast. Changes of tempo and dynamics feel entirely instinctual without any loss of expressive weight and power. The dramatic arc is secure, but the complex journey from a hero’s graveside to the heavens provides ample opportunities for Rattle to raise goosebumps. Like Järvi, he’s blessed with state-of-the-art engineering.
The opening and closing movements are emotional rollercoasters daring the listener to come along for the ride. The inner movements are full of telling detail, such as the unselfconscious Viennese portamenti in the elegant Andante moderato and the reedy pungency conductor and orchestra bring to bear on the slippery scherzo. Scottish mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor is an arresting soloist, and the Bavarian Radio Chorus lift the roof as well as our collective spirits in the finale. One hundred and two years on from Oskar Fried’s pioneering account, Rattle delivers another Mahler 2 for the ages.
