Mahler worked on his second symphony over several years, probably due to his workload as a conductor. The symphony was created over six years from 1888 to 1894. With this symphony, Mahler leaves the conventional form scheme that was still used by Bruckner yet opened a new horizon for this genre. For the final fifth movement, Mahler was inspired by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s poem “The Resurrection”, using the first two stanzas of this text and supplementing them with his own lines of text, probably to have even more emphasis and expression. The title «Resurrection» for Mahler’s entire second symphony did not come from the composer himself. Carlo Balmelli only used the part from the large trombone chorus for his transcription of the fifth movement.

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