Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gustav Mahler composed his Second Symphony over a period of six years following a funeral on the 13th of December 1894. The experience of hearing Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's poem The Resurrection at the funeral of his mentor Hans von Bülow inspired Mahler to transform personal tragedy into the core of this massive new symphony.
The symphony consists of five distinct movements including the Allegro maestoso funeral march, the Andante moderato Ländler, the In ruhig fließender Bewegung scherzo, the Urlicht song for alto solo, and the Im Tempo des Scherzos finale. The final movement is the longest part of the work and is divided into two large sections with the second part beginning with the entry of the chorus.
Gustav Mahler introduced the concept of the Fernorchester or distant orchestra in the Second Symphony to create a sense of space and otherworldliness. This technique involves placing a small extra orchestra outside the concert hall and using specific instruments like the organ and church bells in the final movement to achieve a sound Mahler found unsatisfactory with any other means.
The text of the symphony combines poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Die Auferstehung by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock with Mahler's own words. The vocal forces include a soprano solo, an alto solo, and a mixed chorus, with the bass section featuring a B below the bass cleocle that Mahler instructed basses to sing rather than an octave higher.
The original manuscript was given by Mahler's widow to conductor Willem Mengelberg at a 1920 Mahler festival and was later bought from the Mengelberg Foundation in 1984 by entrepreneur Gilbert Kaplan. The score was auctioned at Sotheby's of London for £4.5 million in 2016 and is now displayed at the Cleveland Museum of Art as the only known handwritten and autographed manuscript of the work.
The world premiere of the first three movements took place on the 4th of March 1895 in Berlin with the composer conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. The complete world premiere followed on the 13th of December 1895, also in Berlin, conducted by the composer himself.