Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Symphony No.6 'tragic' Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The 6th symphony of Gustav Mahler was written between 1903 and 1904, mostly in Vienna, in a period of professional success and private happiness. But musically, the "Tragic", as the symphony is sometimes called, seems like a bizarre reversal of Mahler's life reality. Or as an anticipation of future tragedies: the death of the daughter, the diagnosis of Mahler's heart disease and the profound occupational crisis at the Vienna Court Opera. They should soon end Mahler's short luck abruptly. In retrospect, these three strokes of fate were identified with the famous hammer blows of the final movement. Alma Mahler wrote in her memoirs to the symphony: "No work has

flowed from his heart so directly. The Sixth is his most personal work and a prophetic one on top of that."