Sechstes Sinfoniekonzert

In the organizer's words:

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 6

The two - or (depending on the version) three - hammer blows in the finale of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 have caused and continue to cause much debate: What do they stand for? What strokes of fate are behind these symbolic canonades of orchestral noise pleasure? A wooden block attached to a wooden stick - hopefully well - and struck on a wooden resonance box: "Is there a place for this in symphonic music?" - was perhaps what the audience asked themselves after the premiere on May 27, 1906 in the Saalbau Essen. Today we know how and how rightly this music entered the symphonic concert canon. Through sheer quality, through Mahler's exuberant courage and originality - and through Leonard Bernstein's Mahler mediation after the Shoah and the Second World War. One thing is certain: "The fun stops in the 6th Symphony, and with a decisiveness that perhaps reaches the limits of what is artistically presentable, even artistic." This is how Mathias Hansen put it. Mahler biographer Jens Malte Fischer echoes this sentiment: "People obviously couldn't imagine that a composer could mean something so bitterly serious." All of this is important for Mahler's music. Everyday life, the adversities of life, the contrasts in the music, the emotions swinging back and forth. Between rejoicing and being saddened to death. A work that everyone should encounter at least once.