The Symphony No. 6 in A minor by Gustav Mahler is a symphony in four movements, composed in 1903 and 1904, with revisions from 1906. It is sometimes nicknamed the Tragic (), though the origin of the name is unclear.

Introduction

Mahler conducted the work's first performance at the Saalbau concert hall in Essen on 27 May 1906. He composed the symphony during 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 the symphony. 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:

Nickname of

The status of the symphony's nickname is problematic. Nor does the word appear on any of the scores that C. F. Kahnt published (first edition, 1906; revised edition, 1906), in Specht's officially approved ('thematic guide')

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for a very large orchestra, the largest purely instrumental forces Mahler ever wrote for, consisting of the following:

;Woodwinds

: piccolo (used only in movement 4)

: 4 flutes (3rd and 4th doubling 2nd and 3rd piccolos)

: 4 oboes (3rd and 4th doubling 2nd and 3rd cor anglais; 2nd cor anglais used only in Scherzo)

: cor anglais (used only in movement 4)

: E clarinet (doubling 4th clarinet)

: 3 B and A clarinets

: bass clarinet

: 4 bassoons (4th used only in movement 4)

: contrabassoon

;Brass

: 8 horns

: 6 trumpets (5th and 6th used only in movement 4)

: 4 trombones (4th used only in movement 4)

: tuba

;Keyboards

: celesta (doubled or tripled if possible)

;Percussion

: 6 timpani (two players)

: bass drum

: 2 snare drums (used in movements 1 and 4)

: several pairs of crash cymbals

: suspended cymbals

: several triangles

: cowbells (offstage in movements 1 and 4, onstage in Andante)

: hammer (see description below)

: 2 tam-tams (standard and deep)

: rute (to be struck on the bass drum case, used only in movement 4)

: small wooden stick (to be struck on the bass drum case, used only in the scherzo)

: deep, untuned bells (used only in movement 4, offstage)

: glockenspiel

: xylophone

; Strings

: 4 harps

: 1st violins

: 2nd violins

: violas

: cellos

: double basses

thumb|Contemporary caricature about the unorthodox usage of a hammer: "My god, I forgot the car horn! Now I can write another symphony." (, 19 January 1907)

Listed above is the full, original orchestration of the sixth symphony. The critical edition does not account for everything listed, especially regarding the very large percussion section. The number of harps specified is ambiguous; Mahler called for two in his list of instruments, but at one point he called for four harps in the score. Due to costs, however, most performances use only two.

In addition to very large woodwind and brass sections, Mahler augmented the percussion section with several unusual instruments, including untuned bells, offstage cowbells, and the famous "Mahler hammer". The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)." The sound achieved in the premiere did not quite carry far enough from the stage, and indeed the problem of achieving the proper volume while still remaining dull in resonance remains a challenge to the modern orchestra. Various methods of producing the sound have involved a wooden mallet striking a wooden surface, a sledgehammer striking a wooden box, or a particularly large bass drum, or sometimes simultaneous use of more than one of these methods. Contemporaries mocked the use of the hammer, as shown by a caricature from the satirical magazine .

Structure

The work is in four movements and has a duration of around 80 minutes. The order of the inner movements has been a matter of controversy. The first published edition of the score (C. F. Kahnt, 1906) featured the movements in the following order:

Mahler later placed the 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.

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:

I.

The first movement, which for the most part has the character of a march, features a motif consisting of an A major triad turning to A minor over a distinctive timpani rhythm. The chords are played by trumpets and oboes when first heard, with the trumpets sounding the loudest in the first chord and the oboes in the second.

{| role="presentation"

|File:Mahler 6 fate motif.png||

|}

This motif reappears in subsequent movements. The first movement also features a soaring melody which the composer's wife, Alma Mahler, claimed represented her. This melody is often called the "Alma theme". A restatement of that theme at the movement's end marks the happiest point of the symphony.

<score sound="1"> \relative c { \clef treble \key f \major \numericTimeSignature \time 4/4 \partial 8*3 a'8(\f\< bes c)\! | \slashedGrace { a,( } d'4.)(\ff^"Schwungvoll" c8) \slashedGrace { bes,( } bes'\sf)([ g\sf) e8. d16] | d4\sf( c) } </score>

II. :

The scherzo marks a return to the unrelenting march rhythms of the first movement, though in a 'triple-time' metrical context.

<score sound="1"> { \new PianoStaff << \new Staff \relative c' { \clef treble \time 3/8 \key a \minor \tempo "Wuchtig" \partial 8*1 s8 | s4. | r8 r8 \grace { b16([ d] } a'\ff)[ r32 gis] | a16[ r32 gis a16 r32 gis a16 r32 gis] | a16[ r32 gis a16 r32 gis a16 r32 gis] | \grace { a16([ b] } c8\sf)([ a16)] r } \new Staff \relative c { \clef bass \time 3/8 \key a \minor a8[\sf | a a] a[\sf | a a] a[\sf | a a] a[\sf | a a] a[\sf | a a] } >> } </score>

Its trio (the middle section), marked ('old-fashioned'), is rhythmically irregular ( switching to and ) and of a somewhat gentler character.

<score sound="1"> \relative c { \clef treble \key f \major \time 3/8 \partial 8*1 c8\f-. | c\>-. c-. c-.\! | \time 4/8 a(\p c16 a f8->)\breathe c' | \time 3/8 c-.\< c-. c-.\! | \time 4/8 bes16( c a bes g8)-.\breathe } </score>

According to Alma Mahler, in this movement Mahler "represented the unrhythmical games of the two little children, tottering in zigzags over the sand". The chronology of its composition suggests otherwise. The movement was composed in the summer of 1903, when Maria Anna (born November 1902) was less than a year old. Anna Justine was born a year later in June 1904.

III.

The provides a respite from the intensity of the rest of the work. Its main theme is an introspective ten-bar phrase in E major, though it frequently touches on the minor mode as well. This theme, which is repeated three times, is actually a quote from , the first song of Kindertotenlieder. The movement's second theme eventually returns in the violins, leading to climax played by the horns, with cowbells loudly clashing with the rest of the orchestra. The strife is short lived, however, and the music finds solace in its final bars.

<score sound="1"> \relative c' { \clef treble \key ees \major \numericTimeSignature \time 4/4 \tempo "Andante moderato" \partial 4*1 ees8\pp( f) | g4( ees'8 g,) aes( fes) ees-- d-- | ees2( bes4) d!8( ees) | f!4.--( f8--) f([ ges16 f ees8 f)] | ges2. } </score>

IV.

thumb|Another version of the "hammer", used by the [[Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for performances in November 2016]]

The last movement is an extended sonata form with an introduction and coda, characterized by drastic changes in mood and tempo, the sudden change of glorious soaring melody to deep agony.

<score sound="1"> << \new Staff \relative c' { \clef bass \time 2/2 \key bes \major bes1\ff-> | bes,2.-> aes4-> | g1-> } \new RhythmicStaff { \clef bass b4_"Hammer"\ff r4 r2 | r1 | r1 } >> </score>

Alma quoted her husband as saying that these were three mighty blows of fate befallen by the hero, "the third of which fells him like a tree". She identified these blows with three later events in Gustav Mahler's own life: the death of his eldest daughter Maria Anna Mahler, the diagnosis of an eventually fatal heart condition, and his forced resignation from the Vienna Opera and departure from Vienna. When he revised the work, Mahler removed the last of these three hammer strokes so that the music built to a sudden moment of stillness in place of the third blow. Some recordings and performances, notably those of Leonard Bernstein, have restored the third hammer blow. The piece ends with the same rhythmic motif that appeared in the first movement, but the chord above it is a simple A minor triad, rather than A major turning into A minor. After the third 'hammer-blow' passage, the music gropes in darkness and then the trombones and horns begin to offer consolation. However, after they turn briefly to major they fade away and the final bars erupt in the minor.

Order of the inner movements and performance history issue

Initial history

Controversy exists over the order of the two middle movements. Mahler conceived the work as having the scherzo second and the slow movement third, a somewhat unclassical arrangement adumbrated in such earlier large-scale symphonies as Beethoven's No. 9, Bruckner's No. 8 and (unfinished) No. 9, and Mahler's own four-movement No. 1 and No. 4. It was in this arrangement that the symphony was completed (in 1904) and published (in March 1906); and it was with a conducting score in which the scherzo preceded the slow movement that Mahler began rehearsals for the work's first performance, as noted by Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de La Grange:

Alfred Roller, a close collaborator and colleague of Mahler's in Vienna, communicated in a letter dated 2 May 1906 to his fiancée Mileva Stojsavljevic, on the Mahlers' reaction to the orchestral rehearsal of the work in Vienna on 1 May 1906 in its original movement order: