Symphony No. 6 in A minor

The symphony opens with a grim marching rhythm in the strings, soon answered by a soaring theme that Mahler said represented his wife Alma. Listen for a trumpet figure of a major chord sliding into minor, a sound of light dimming, that returns throughout the work as a kind of fate motif.

The second movement (in most modern orderings the scherzo comes second) is a heavy, stumbling dance full of jagged accents, interrupted by a gentler, old-fashioned trio section that sounds like a memory of a simpler dance.

The slow movement that follows offers the emotional center of the piece, a long-breathed melody of unusual warmth for this symphony, scored with cowbells and celesta to suggest distant mountain air.

The finale is the longest and most turbulent movement, opening in near-darkness before building through several huge climaxes. Listen for two, sometimes three, enormous blows on a large hammer, struck by a percussionist and meant to sound like a giant felling something with an axe. The symphony ends quietly and darkly, the opening march rhythm returning to close the work without resolution.

Mahler composed his Sixth Symphony in the summers of 1903 and 1904 at his lakeside retreat in Maiernigg, Austria, a period of outward happiness in his marriage to Alma Mahler and the birth of their children. Despite this, the symphony is his bleakest, ending in defeat rather than triumph. Mahler himself led the premiere in Essen, Germany, in 1906, with the orchestra including cowbells, a large hammer, and other unusual effects. The nickname "Tragic" appears on early programs and scores, though its origin is debated. Mahler revised the score more than once, including changing the order of the middle movements and, in later performances, removing the third hammer blow, reportedly out of superstition about its association with real misfortune in his life.