Luogo e data di registrazione		Herkules-Saal, München (Germania): - dicembre 1968 (Symphonie Nr. 6) - aprile 1968 (Symphonie Nr. 10)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Executive Producers		Otto Gerdes (Symphonie Nr. 10), Wilfried Daenicke (Symphonie Nr. 6)
	Recording Producer		Hans Weber
	Balance Engineer		Heinz Wildhagen
	Prima Edizione LP		Deutsche Grammophon - 139 341/42 - (2 LP's) - durata 47' 27" & 50' 34" - (p) 1969 - Analogico
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon - 429 042-2 - (10 CD's - 4°, 2: Symphonie Nr. 10; 7°: Symphonie Nr. 6) - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Note		-

Stylistically speaking, Mahler's Sixth Symphony has much in common with the Fifth which preceded it, and with the Seventh which followed. Like them it is a work of purely instrumental character, whose concept derived solely from the forces, ideas and impulses of the musical texture. The form is marked by a return to the traditional layout in four movements: Allegro, Scherzo, Andante and Finale. However, the subject matter with which Mahler filled the customary structure has little in common with the purpose and nature of earlier symphonies. It may, in fact, be said that in his Sixth Symphony Mahler moved further than on any other occasion away from music making in the accepted sense. The Sixth is his most radical Symphony - and possibly also hit most personal, since in this work he revealed the dark side of his nature with complete candour. With every note he wrote Mahle was speaking from the depths of his being. The Sixth Symphony is more than a personal confession: it is the surrender and stripping bare of the composer's innermost self. As regards musical technique, too, this work stands at the most extreme point of its composer's line of development. It is his most musically audacious and most modern work, and possibly, consciously or unconsciously, Mahler's questing and exploring mind had already become subject to the impetuous forces which were soon to bring about a revolution in music. Mahler 'was not by any means a pessimist. His symphonies, which provide the best and most unambigupus clues to his attitude to life, give us a message of hope - all except one. All conclude in the major - with the exception of this Sixth Symphony. Even "Das Lied von der Erde" and the Ninth Symphony, which he wrote when fearfully aware of the heart disease which threatened his life, end consolingly. Not with resignation or bitterness, but with a gentle, benign gaze back at the beloved earth. The Sixth Symphony is known as the "Tragic", a description said to heve been given to it by Mahler himself. But whence came the urge to express himself in such tragic terms? It would be pointless to speculate about this, because while there are probably certain analogies - sometimes even evident parallels - between a creative artist's experiences and what he reveals outwardly in his work, they exist in a remote spere far removed from the known worlds. In such a way the idea of tragedy itself may have given Mahler the subject for his Sixth Symphony - an idea deep within him which strove to find expression, without the impulse of any external event. This portrayal of tragedy may have become so wholly black, hopelest anguished and oppressive precisely because the motifs from which it evolved derive exclusively from artistic observation. If this interpretation is correct and the Sixth Symphony, the Tragic, is indeed the objective presentation of an idea, an abstract concept, Mahler seems at the same time to have experienced this realization of the idea as something with which he identified himself humanly and personally. He seems to have felt within himself the sense of tragic dread captured in his music. Owing to the uncommon sensitivity of his nature, the inward experience even affected him physically. Alma Mahler has given a really moving account of the world première of this Symphony, which took place during a music festival at Essen in 1906. She wrote of the final rehearsals: "The last movement of this work with the three great blows of fate! No other work so affected him at first hearing ... At the performance Mahler conducted the Symphony almost badly, because he was ashamed of his agitation, and because he was afraid that his emotions might get out of hand while he was conducting. He did not want anyone to guess at the truth of this dreadful anticipando movement!" The term "anticipando movement" evidently implies that during the year of this work's composition Mahler anticipated, in artistic sublimation, the experience which was in fact to become all too real and shattering three years later, when a doctor dicovered that he was suffering from a grave heart disease, and he regarded the diagnosis as a sentence of death. A fact which appears purely superficial sheds further light on the sombre mystery of the Sixth Symphony. In this work Mahler added to his already massive orchestra two further instruments, or more correctly noise-producing implements: cowbells and a hammer. Both are of symbolical significance. Mahler himself is said to have remarked that the cowbells represent the last sounds heard from the earth by a lone wanderer as he ascends to the heights, so that they symbolize complete isolation, as though remote from the world. The meaning of the hammer is not difficult to guess; mention has already been made in a quotation of the "three great blows of fate". Mahler wrote that the hammer was to produce a short, strong but dull-sounding thud, not metallic in character. When the hammer stroke occurs, however, the event which is intended in a symbolic sense becomes crudely realistic: fate does not knock at the door but opens it by force, and appears on the symphonic stage in a tangicle personification. In any event these newly introduced tonal symbols serve as indications of the direction in which to look for clues to the meaning of the individual movements. When the cowbells are heard in the first movement, they suggest that the lone wanderer has reached the highest summit and the most remote region. Viewed from this point, it is evident that the whole tremendous movement represents a struggle upwards, impelled by wild, demoniac passions. The two central movements, Andante and Scherzo, represent different stages en route, but they bring neither diversion, repose or relaxation. The Andante begins almost in the manner of the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, but meither the sense of disquiet as it develops, nor its tortured harmonies, allow this movement to sing consolingly. The Scherzo gives the impression that it is compelling itself by an effort of will not to dwell on sombre, threatening and evil thoughts. Artificial poses are adopted, so that the music sounds intentionally affected. Mahler gave here the express direction "altväterisch" (antiquated). This is both an indication of tempo and manner of performance, and a clue to the underlying meaning of the music. The term Finale is inappropriate to the fourth and last movement, since this is the heart, and principal section, of the entire work. Not only in externals and as regards its dimensions does it tower over all that has gone before: its significance is such that it makes the preceding movements its forerunners, preludes or satellites. This movement, with its wild and despairing struggle upwards, has no real need of the hammer as a symbolical instrument, so powerful and inexorable are the feeling and consciousness of tragedy which it creates in  the listener - a sense of our absolute impotence when confronted by the dark and evil forces of destiny. · · · · · Among the papers left by Mahler at his death was a black folder containing sketches for his Tenth Symphony. Some sections of the work had already taken on tangible form, so that many significant features were apprecciable, giving some idea of the basic outlines of the projected composition. According to Alma Maria Mahler, the fundamental feeling of the Tenth Symphony is the certainty and suffering of death, together with defiance of death. Looking through the sketches, one does indeed sense the presence of a feeling that death is near. The first movement is an Adagio whose mood is one of resignation. A broadly-spun melody seems to stretch out its arms to embrace the whole world once again before darkness closes in. A fifteen-bar Introduction is played by the violas alone. Motto-like, it recurs several times during the course of the movement, in slightly varied form. The principal theme of the Adagio is rich in wide intervals, which enhance its expressive character to a remarkable degree. Trills and pizzicato fidures create a strange sense of holding back. The alternation between smooth-flowing animation and sudden hesitations, or an apparent complete cessation of momentum, so typical of Mahler, gives this movement its unmistakable character. The Adagio is the only movement which Mahler completed in almost every detail. It gives the listener an impression of overall unity, even though he may sense the existence of gaps, and of passages whose meaning is veiled or which lack final touches. According to the sketches the Finale would have been related in mood and thematic material to this first movement. Heinrich Kralik