Post Description

Recording producer, recording engineer: Ralf Koschnicke / Ralf Kolbinger  
Mixing engineer, editor: Ralf Koschnicke
Recording facilities: ACOUSENCE recording mobile / ACOUSENCE recordings 
Recording location: Mercatorhalle Duisburg, 18./19.06.2008
c & p 2008 ACOUSENCE records 

The Complexity of Gustav Mahler's "Tragic symphony" 

Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony is enigmatic. It is a work with a 'Janus-faced' appearance, which on the one hand strictly fulfils the conventions of a classical symphony, but is on the other hand tonally brittle like no other of Mahler's symphonies. Also with regard to its meaning the work isn't easily accessible, for here the composer does not give pithy descriptions or comprehension aids as in the case of the previous symphonies. On top of this the few references to its meaning are bordering on dubiosity. Not even the epithet "tragic" is authentic beyond doubt. 

But firstly the Sixth symphony by Gustav Mahler fulfils the classic symphonic scheme as clearly as no other work of this composer. This begins to show itself in the sequence of movements, with a clearly structured sonata movement (exposition, development and reprise), slow movement, scherzo and a finale which once again takes up the sonata form. The fact that a densely related network of themes, motives and structures is laid over these four movements, contributes substantially to the uniform shape of this composition. 

The avoidance of a radiantly optimistic ending to the Sixth Symphony, as can be found by most composers since Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and also elsewhere by Gustav Mahler, is very striking. Although Mahler's radiantly triumphant major finales always seem compulsive and unauthentic. In Mahler's Sixth Symphony the prospect of a happy solution is however excluded right from the start, therefore striding conspicuously in the opposite direction to the "Fifth". While the older work wandered from the opening funeral march to the cheerful rondo finale, the hammer blows in the finale now mark the catastrophe from which the hero never recovers. What exactly could be intended by that isn't free of speculation. It is said that Gustav Mahler alluded to three strokes of fate which caught up with him soon after: the death of his elder daughter, the diagnosis of his own incurable heart condition and the task of the directorship of the Viennese Court Opera. This however, would assume that the composer had prophetic abilities. Such explanatory attempts, and also the conjuration of the ghost of the first World War are always amazing, but nevertheless also take away decisive factors with regard to a work's ambiguity and openness. 

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