Hammer Blows

Mahler's Symphony No 6 by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez. Reaching areas on the shelves with a concentration of Mahler, which makes it slightly difficult to find much to say about each individual symphony that isn't just repeating commonly held views and assumptions about their composition. This is the symphony that is considered the most tragic with the three hammer blows at the end which have been given the status of a premonition about three personal tragedies to come. There is one section in the booklet notes here which struck home; "what is the power with which Mahler's symphonic heroes are forced to contend and to which they often succumb as is the case at the end of the sixth symphony ? It is a struggle that Mahler himself had to face as he makes clear in a striking remark when, after the final rehearsal a friend asked him how someone so good could portray so much cruelty and harshness in his work, to which he replied that they were the cruelties he had suffered and the pains he had felt." The disputes about the best recorded Mahler symphony cycles are endless, suffice it to say that Boulez and the Vienna Phil is a pretty luxurious combination.