Gustav Mahler
Kalistě, 1860 - Vienna, 1911
Symphony no. 6 in A minor “Tragic”
Allegro energico ma non tanti, Heftig aber marking (Violent but marked)
Scherzo, Wuchtig (Energetic)
Moderate going
Finale, Sostenuto, etwas schleppend (a little dragging), Schwer (Pesante), Allegro moderato, Allegro energico.
“Only the Sext , despite the Pastoral ”.
This is how Mahler's Sixth Symphony was defined by Alban Berg , composed between 1903 and 1905 in the breaks that the Bohemian composer managed to find in the years in which he occupied the position of director of the Vienna Opera. In particular, he found the time and serenity to write this symphony in the chaletwhich had been built in the enchanting town of Maiernigg am Würthersee in Carinthia right on the shore of the lake of the same name. Here in the summer months Mahler, surrounded by the affection of his loved ones, his wife Alma and his two daughters, had reserved a personal space for himself in a hut separate from the main building, where he used to retire to compose. As told by a friend of Alma, who frequented her house, the stay in Carinthia in the summer of 1904 was particularly serene for the composer who, in addition to dedicating himself to the composition of this symphony, played Bach on the piano, read and quoted by Goethe and went on a few boat trips on the lake. Just at the end of the summer of 1904 Mahler, as he was preparing to return to Vienna,Sixth Symphony . He himself would have conducted the first performance on May 27, 1907 in Essen on the occasion of the celebrations of the Allgemeinen Deutschen Musikverein. Despite the particularly happy family situation and the enchanting place in which it was composed, the Symphony has a strong pessimistic connotation to the point that it was later given the subtitle of "Tragic". In fact, as the musicologist Luigi Bellingard stated, "it is a hallucinating macabre dance, sprinkled with desperate symbols aiming at catastrophe". Therefore, a certain astonishment arises as the apparent family serenity, experienced by Mahler when he wrote this symphony, inspired such a pessimistic work, in which, according to the testimony of his wife Alma, there are autobiographical cues. According to what the woman said, her husband would almost have foreseen misfortunes that would soon befall his boss both on a human and professional level, such as the early death of his eldest daughter Maria Anna at the age of five in 1907 due to diphtheria , the imminent break with the Vienna State Opera and the illness that would lead him to his premature death a few years later.
Second of the cycle of the so-called Instrumental-Symphonien ( Fifth, Sixth and Seventh ), so called because they were written for an exclusively instrumental ensemble, the Sixth Symphony constitutes an admirable synthesis of the previous production of which it is the ripest fruit. If with the Fifth Mahler had tried to break the link with a non-musical program and had set aside the lieder inspiration of the first four symphonies, building a complex architecture that still did not fully conform to the classical form, with the Sixthit provided an admirable synthesis between innovative writing and tradition represented, in this case, by the return to the classic sonata-form reworked in order to create a real summa . In the Sixth Mahler's symphonic conception is fully realized who had explicitly stated: A symphony must be like a world!
However, it is a tragic world that is revealed to the listener right from the brief introductory part of the first movement with the funeral march suitable for immediately creating the lugubrious atmosphere of the whole symphony. The first movement, Allegro energico ma non troppo , is formally in sonata form made evident by the ritornello sign that distinguishes the exposition, all played on the dramatic contrast between a first theme of a menacing nature and the second passionate one, called by Mahler the same theme of Alma , in honor of his wife. From these two themes and their subsequent motif reworkings arises the dramatic conflict that characterizes the development, the reprise and the coda and seems to find a moment of peace only after an intense climaxwhen sounds of cowbells evoke an image of high mountains. After the reprise, in which some thematic elements are varied, the coda opens up a glimmer of hope with echoes of the second theme triumphantly asserting themselves. Hope, to which the coda of the first movement alluded, is immediately contradicted by the second, Scherzo , formally and rhythmically a Ländler who, far from representing a moment of serenity, turns into a nightmare in which everything appears deformed. Thus the traditional three-part formal structure with the Scherzo , followed by the Trio and the reprise of the Scherzo , is interrupted by the ghosts of the two main themes of the first movement which return varied, while the ternary rhythm of theTrio is destabilized by beats in binary rhythm. The third movement, Andante moderato , already stands out as an oasis of lyricism in the initial theme, which some contemporary detractors of Mahler judged trivial, but which Schönberg, a great admirer of the composer, considered modern in that it was full of asymmetries and ellipses. In this theme, intertwined with nostalgia and sentimentality, the atmosphere of the Kindertotenlieder returns without the painful implications that characterize this lieder cycle. The Finale, corresponding to the longest movement of Mahler's entire production, is configured as a powerful construction structured on three themes of which the first is a march, the second, contrasting, is passionate and cantabile in the only optimistic pause within the movement and the third, finally, is of a dreamy nature. The final tragedy, imminent and announced by hammer blows that seem to shatter any, albeit residual, illusion, takes shape in the final funeral march.
