pf: Leonard Bernstein cond/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (recorded September 1988, Vienna, Musikverein, Große Saal )
The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler is a symphony in four movements, composed in 1903 and 1904 (revised 1906; scoring repeatedly revised). Mahler conducted the work’s first performance at the Saalbau (de) concert hall in Essen on May 27, 1906. It is sometimes referred to by the nickname Tragische (“Tragic”). Mahler composed the symphony at what was apparently an exceptionally happy time in his life, as he had married Alma Schindler in 1902, and during the course of the work’s composition his second daughter was born. This contrasts with the tragic, even nihilistic, ending of No. 6. Both Alban Berg and Anton Webern praised the work when they first heard it. Berg expressed his opinion of the stature of this symphony in a 1908 letter to Webern: “Es gibt doch nur eine VI. trotz der Pastorale.” (There is only one Sixth, despite the Pastoral.)
The work, in four movements, lasts around 80 minutes. The order of the inner movements is a matter of debate. The first published edition of the score (CF Kahnt, 1906) featured the movements in the following order:
0:00 – Allegro energico, ma non troppo. Heftig, aber markig.
23:09 – Scherzo: Wuchtig
37:21 – Andante moderato
53:39 – Finale: Sostenuto – Allegro moderato – Allegro energico
However, Mahler subsequently placed the Andante as the second movement, and this new order of the inner movements was reflected in the second and third published editions of the score, as well as the Essen premiere.
Formally, the symphony is one of Mahler’s most outwardly conventional. The first three movements are relatively traditional in structure and character, with a standard sonata form first movement (even including an exact repeat of the exposition, unusual in Mahler) leading to the middle movements – one a scherzo-with-trios, the other slow. However, attempts to analyze the vast finale in terms of the sonata archetype have encountered serious difficulties. As Dika Newlin has pointed out: “it has elements of what is conventionally known as ‘sonata form’, but the music does not follow a set pattern […] Thus, ‘expositional’ treatment merges directly into the type of contrapuntal and modulatory writing appropriate to ‘elaboration’ sections […]; the beginning of the principal theme-group is recapitulated in C minor rather than in A minor, and the C minor chorale theme […] of the exposition is never recapitulated at all”.
SOURCE: Wikipedia