Post Description

The Sixth symphony was written in 1904. Mahler had recently married Alma Schindler and their first child was born while he was working on the symphony. His relationship with Alma had not yet degenerated into the tempestuous affair it would later become. Even his famously fractious relationship with the Viennese musical establishment was in one of its more benign phases. So why did he write his most angst ridden symphony. 

The answer may be that his marriage to ‘the most beautiful woman in Vienna’ reinforced his view of himself as an outsider. Like many great artists he had the ability to see beneath the surface and realised very early where it was all likely to end. 

Mahler never sanctioned the name ‘Tragic’ and it is not clear where it came from. ‘Fate’ would probably be more appropriate. The ‘fate’ theme is introduced in the first movement and recurs with even greater force in the finale reinforced by the famous hammer blows, which have long challenged percussionists and recording engineers. These hammer blows are themselves an enigma. Originally Mahler proposed five. The five were reduced to three and finally the third was removed leaving only two. Whether these changes were the result of musical insight or superstition we will never know. 

The final enigma is the order of the middle movements. In the first published score the scherzo came second and the slow movement third. During the rehearsal period Mahler changed his mind and all performances conducted by him had the slow movement second and the scherzo third. The reinstatement of the original order came at the insistence of Alma who maintained it was her husband’s wish. Like all the best enigmas we shall probably never know the truth – even if there is a truth to be known. 

The one thing that is entirely un-enigmatic is the LSO performance under Valery Gergiev. The LSO has a long history of great performances of this symphony and the Russian Gergiev has an intuitive understanding of the conflicting tensions at the heart of one of Mahler’s finest works.