RESURRECTION

The soprano Ying Fang, the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, performing in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” at Damrosch Park in Manhattan. Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Coming back to life after death. The act of causing something that had ended or been forgotten or lost to exist again. Revitalization or revival. Rising again.

Last night, under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and with soloists Ying Fang and Denyce Graves, the Met Orchestra and Chorus gave the second of two outdoor performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony: a last-minute addition to the preseason schedule offered up to the city of New York after 18 very long months of collective grief, loss, and forced musical silence. Mahler 2, commonly known as the “Resurrection,” is a titan of the repertoire and a piece that I have loved dearly for decades.

On July 7 (Mahler’s birthday), my friend Aaron Cohen released the second season of his multi-year podcast “Embrace Everything: The World of Gustav Mahler.” A passionate deep-dive into the Second Symphony, I wept and wept as I listened to the radio broadcast that night. Finally, something had cracked my grief open and given voice to everything that the last year and a half had contained. Of course, it would be Mahler. As I lay there, curled into myself and my couch, feeling every collapse and clash and triumphant swell of phrase deep within my body, I found myself full of longing, both to hear our orchestra play this music and to be a part of it myself. It seemed impossible, then, to imagine it and yet, miraculously, it has happened.

Reflecting today on what these performances mean to me, I am filled with a sense of tremendous uplift and gratitude. A crisp bracing air has moved through me and mine, clearing out a storehouse of accumulated grief and loss, and in doing so, has set me free to move forward. Through intense isolation, anxiety, loss, and despair, somehow we’ve found our way to a place where we could come together for a few hours to both make music as we were intended to do and offer it up for all those who would listen. To be returned to one’s self in this way is a profound and joyous gift.

Whatever comes next, may we be wise enough, kind enough, and spacious enough to continue moving forward, aspiring, like the world of a Mahler symphony, to embrace everything. May we yet survive, create beauty, and care for each other as we go.

I wish you deepest renewal and restoration today, friends. Be well.