MAHLER SYMPHONY NO . 6
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
By Jacob Jahiel
Gustav Mahler
Born July 7 , 1860 in Kaliště , Bohemia Died May 18 , 1911 in Vienna , Austria
SYMPHONY NO . 6 IN A MINOR [ 1903 – 1904 , REV . 1906 ]
The years of 1903 – 04 were some of the happiest in Gustav Mahler ’ s life . His wife , Alma , gave birth to their second daughter , Anna , in 1904 ; his career as a conductor-composer was rapidly gaining steam ; and Alma recalled of their summer “ composing vacations ” that Gustav “… was cheerful and conscious of the greatness of his work ; he was a tree in full leaf and flower .”
Yet out of these happy years emerged two of Mahler ’ s bleakest creations , Kindertotenlieder (“ Songs on the Death of Children ”) and his Sixth Symphony in A minor , a work ending not in customary triumph but what conductor and friend Bruno Walter called “ hopelessness and the dark night of the soul .” By 1907 , three years after Mahler conducted its premiere in Essen , the Sixth had gained a new , somewhat controversial nickname —“ Tragic ”— a moniker that may or may not have come from Mahler himself and which has been applied inconsistently since .
Mahler sensed the work ’ s inherent paradoxes ( if not biographical , then at least musical ), remarking to biographer Richard Specht , “ My Sixth will pose riddles that only a generation that has absorbed and digested my first five symphonies may hope to solve .” Writing in her 1940 memoir almost three decades after her husband ’ s death , Alma Mahler sought answers to such riddles in the quasi-supernatural , recalling “ So deeply did we feel this music and what it foretold us . The Sixth is his most personal work and is also a prophetic one . In Kindertotenlieder and in the Sixth , he musically anticipated his life . He , too , received three blows from fate , and the last felled him .”
Two meanings lie behind “ three blows from fate .” The first is musical : in composing the fourth movement , Mahler imagined a hero suffering “ three hammer-blows of fate , the last of which fells him as a tree is felled .” The second meaning alludes to the threefold catastrophes that would shortly strike him : a messy departure from his music directorship of the Vienna Court Opera , the death of four-year-old daughter Maria , and , only days later , the discovery of a fatal heart condition .
Whether by coincidence or fate , it is curious to imagine that Mahler might have somehow sensed — and musically pre-empted — these impending tragedies , most acutely in the case of Kindertotenlieder and the devastating loss of his child . But , even for those willing to entertain a characterization of these works as “ prophetic ,” there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical .
Alma ’ s retelling of the circumstances surrounding the Sixth does not consistently match the biographical record . Recalling preparations for its first performance in Essen , she recalls that Gustav “… walked up and down in the artists ’ room , sobbing , wringing his hands , unable to control himself …” Alma , referencing the “ three blows of fate ,” attributes the breakdown to the work itself and what it would later come to signify . The more likely reason , however , stemmed from an inadvertently critical comment from Richard Strauss , who obliviously entered the room , remarked on the orchestration , and promptly left .
Alma also alleged that the Scherzo evoked imagery of their two daughters playing , yet the movement was written before the younger Anna was born , and the older Maria was still only an infant . Even the importance ascribed to the “ three blows of fate ” remains an open-ended question — in 1906 , Mahler revised the score to contain only two . Finally , Alma evidently declined to mention a fourth hammer-blow : her subsequent affair with the architect ( and future husband ) Walter Gropius , an affair that crushed Gustav although the marriage remained intact .
There is no reason to think that Alma was deliberately misleading when she referred to the Sixth as “ prophetic .” Though her relationship with Gustav was complex , she loved him deeply , and his tragedies were also hers . Alma likely faced the same predicament that we now
From the Podium
by Jonathon Heyward
It has been roughly eight years since the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performed Mahler ’ s Sixth , and it is a great pleasure to bring it back after a long hiatus . The greatness of Mahler lies in his ability to create drama and craft compelling narratives through rich orchestration . In the case of the Sixth , one of my favorite of his symphonies , the narrative is vividly illuminated by the clever atmosphere , characters brought to life by colors and textures that range from chamber-music-esque to the most grandiose sound a symphony orchestra can achieve .
The challenges of this work are many — not least in the question of scale . When thinking about any piece that spans more than one hour , it becomes particularly important to carefully consider its architecture in order to properly convey drama and narrative . Elements like pacing and tempi become crucial for connecting ideas within movements , as well as the symphony as a whole . Fortunately , in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra , I could not ask for better collaborators .
Different conductors have made different decisions regarding the ordering of the inner two movements . I believe that placing the Adagio second , followed by the Scherzo , most closely mirrors Mahler ’ s own wishes — he revised it this way for a reason , and I feel this decision better conveys the work ’ s narrative arch . A handful of conductors have also restored the original third “ hammer-blow ” in the last movement , but again , I have chosen to respect Mahler ’ s final decision for only two . After all , the emptiness we all feel in its absence can be even more devastating . As for the symphony ’ s “ Tragic ” nickname , which I chose not to use , while it may be true of the last movement , the work as a whole is not all doom and gloom . There is light here , too , and I encourage you to listen for it .
34 OVERTURE / BSOmusic . org