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Mahler's Sixth Symphony:Hammer of the gods |
     Top: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's percussionist delivers the dramatic 'hammer blows' during a performance of Mahler's sixth symphony at the BBC Proms in 2008. Mahler's happy domestic circumstances were at odds with the pessimistic character of the work. His wife, Alma (above) later said she believed the symphony predicted tragic events to come in their lives. |
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Did Mahler's sixth symphony presage tragic events in the composer's life? Frederick Holford explores the symphony and the mythology that surrounds it |
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The unofficial subtitle of Mahler’s sixth symphony, ‘The Tragic’, belies the circumstances in which it was written; he was enjoying the zenith of his conducting career and was described by Alma Mahler as being ‘serene’ and ‘conscious of the greatness of his work’. Nevertheless, the subtitle ‘The Tragic’ is appropriate for a number of reasons; it reflects accurately upon music whose key is most notably in the minor. Indeed, the key of A minor appeared to be imbued with an especially tragic quality for Mahler, appearing in movements in his oeuvre notable for their restless or elegiac qualities. Moreover, contrary to the key scheme of most of Mahler’s other symphonies, the sixth ends as well as starts in A minor; having been written on the back of symphonies whose tonality was ‘progressive’ Mahler must clearly have been conscious of his conformity to the classical key scheme, which in his hands is transformed to affording the piece a feeling of ineluctability. SIxth sense?The sixth symphony represents Mahler the clairvoyant, since its finale features three hammer-blows, with an adjectival subordinate clause now usually following : ‘… of fate’, since they were though by Mahler at the time to presage tragedy; the entire symphony had a negative effect upon him.Whilst it transgresses rational discourse to suggest that Mahler actually predicted tragic events later in his life, and moves beyond the scope of this essay to examine the psychological condition whence such prognostications should have come, it nevertheless can be stated that, in a climacteric turn of fate, three tragedies did later befall Mahler, and regardless of whether they had happened or not it can be observed that Mahler held a superstition of a portentous nature. The first movement of the symphony adheres to the precepts of classical sonata form. The exposition constitutes the first 112 bars of the movement wherein, as in the exposition of the first movement of the third symphony, (though to a lesser extent in the second subject of this movement) there are a collection of motifs, rather than simply one theme. The primary group of motifs appears as an imperious and rather strident march. Following a chorale-like transitory section for divided woodwind (with reiterations of one of the primary motifs played by pizzicato strings) the music bursts into the secondary theme, which in this case could quite rightly be called a ‘feminine’ theme, since it was intended by Mahler to depict his wife, Alma. The exposition, in accordance with classical practice, then repeats itself and is the first time since the first symphony to do so and is the last time Mahler would ever follow the practice. The next movement should be considered the scherzo; in the same way that Mahler deleted the third hammer-stroke from the finale, this change could be seen as an effort to tame a more intense facet of the symphony. Furthermore, the idyllic Andante is rendered all the more efficacious and reposeful following two rather intense movements and moreover makes sense to precede the finale, since the Andante is in E flat major which is the relative major to the C minor in which the finale begins. Following from the Scherzo which for the most part distorts from the first movement and the Andante which again adheres exactly to classical rondo form, there is the monumental finale whose largely joyful music is seriously undermined by two hammer-strokes, before the devastating ultimate hammer-blow, signalling a peroration of severe bleakness. Have you a classical music article for publication? Contact the features editor. Return to: Brightcecilia Classical Music Forums Features Index Return to: Brightcecilia Classical Music Forums About: Brightcecilia Classical Music Forums |
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