Mahler - Symphony no. 6 - Kubelik / Bavarian Radio (1969)

Описание: Gustav Mahler – Symphony no. 6 (1906)

00:00 – Allegro energico, ma non troppo; Heftig, aber markig
21:11 – Scherzo: Wuchtig
32:58 – Andante moderato
47:40 – Finale: Sostenuto – Allegro moderato – Allegro energico

Rafael Kubelik conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
(1969)


"The summer was beautiful, serene and happy. Before the holidays came to an end he played me the completed Sixth Symphony. First I had to get everything done in the house, so as to have all my time free. Once more we walked arm-in-arm up to his hut in the woods, where nothing could disturb us. These occasions were always conducted with much ceremony. After he had drafted the first movement he came down from the woods to tell me he had tried to express me in a theme. "Whether I've succeeded, I don't know; but you'll have to put up with it." This is the great soaring theme of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony, In the third movement he represented the unrhythmic games of the two little children, tottering in zigzags over the sand. Ominously, the childish voices became more and more tragic, and at the end died out in a whimper. In the last movement he described himself and his downfall or, as he later said, that of his hero: "It is the hero, on whose head fall three blows of fate, the last of which fells him as a tree is felled." Those were his words. Not one of his works came so directly from his inmost heart as this. We both wept that day. The music and what it foretold touched us so deeply. The Sixth is the most completely personal of his works, and a prophetic one also. In the Kindertotenlieder, as also in the Sixth, he anticipated his own life in music. On him too fell three blows of fate, and the last felled him. But at the time he was serene; he was conscious of the greatness of his work. He was a tree in full leaf and flower."

– Alma Mahler (excerpt from 'Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters')


Artwork:
Albert Bierstadt – A Storm in the Rocky Mountains (1866)