I couldn't have put what I feel about the close of Mahler's 2nd any better than Dundonnell has in his second paragraph. For all that I love so many unsungs and have flown the flag of Raff for forty years, if I could have only one piece of music to last me for the rest of my life it would be the finale of the Resurrection Symphony. I've heard it in concert five or six times and have cried at every one.
I've only heard it live once, but I have several recordings. It's my go-to 9/11 piece...something about the words of the final movement, too.
I can trace the point at which I break down even farther than that - it's the chord under the final iteration of the word "Herz". Something about that...it feels to me as if
everything for which he has been striving over the past hour is finally bursting forth and breaking free, when the bottom drops out of the chord and out from under the chorus. It feels, for lack of a better term, as if the entire orchestra is hyperextended, and that it's finally touching what it's been seeking for so long. And after that, everyone is loosed from the mooring and continues onward and upward until the end.
To me, three composers have captured Heaven as it ought to be: Mahler, Vaughan Williams, and Boito. With all due respect to the others, only Mahler's is
really universal to me; Vaughan Williams' is peculiarly English and Boito's is full-throated Italian. But not worth any the less for it, naturally.
