Summary: "Pierre Boulez Conducts Mahler Symphony No. 6" Mahler’s trio of life-changing events in 1907 – presaged by the “three hammer blows” that mark the symphony’s finale help feed the myth behind the symphony’s subtitle “Tragic”. Mahler did not title the symphony when he composed it, or at its first performance or first publication. In his Gustav Mahler memoir, Bruno Walter claimed that "Mahler called [the work] his Tragic Symphony". Additionally, the programme for the first Vienna performance (January 4, 1907) refers to the work as "Sechste Sinfonie (Tragische)". The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)." Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/PierreBoulezConductsMahlerSymphonyNo.6 [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]
