Fri   JAN 27  8pm
Sat  JAN 28  8pm
Sun  JAN 29  2pm

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (c. 80 minutes)

Please note this program will be presented without intermission.

programs and artists subject to change

Born: 1860, Kalisté, Bohemia
Died: 1911, Vienna, Austria

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”

Read his composer profile.

• With its pervasive seriousness, the Sixth is Mahler’s darkest symphony; its finale ends in utter despair, including the musical equivalent of a deathblow (played by a “hammer”). Bruno Walter described the piece as “bleakly pessimistic: it reeks of the bitter cup of human life.”

• Despite this, the Symphony still features many moments of tender beauty. As early as the first movement comes the rhapsodic, soaring second theme, which his wife Alma said was a musical portrayal of her.

• Originally meant as the second movement, the rhapsodic Andante is now played third, according to Mahler’s final wishes, making the crushing tragedy of the finale all the more powerful.

• The finale’s hammer blows seem to echo three tragic events that took place in Mahler’s life: he was diagnosed with heart disease (eventually fatal); the eldest of his two young daughters died; and he resigned under pressure from the Vienna Opera. Surprisingly, all this took place AFTER the premiere of his “Tragic” Symphony.

• “It is music that is full of human frailties... His symphonies are suffused with personality...[the] irascible scherzos, the special quality of his communings with nature, the gentle melancholy of a transitional passage…the pages of an incredible loneliness...” (Aaron Copland).

• Read the complete program note.

• LISTEN to excerpts.