Fateful Hammer Blows

Gustav Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (composed in 1903–04) is often referred to as The Tragic. Mahler himself used the title for a time – at least around the first performances – but later withdrew it. Still, the name has stuck, not least due to the dark force that permeates the entire work. We encounter a Mahler who swings between the joy of life and catastrophe, between march-like determination and a sense of fateful resignation.

Something unique occurs in the final movement: a large hammer strikes with deafening force into a wooden box – a sonic expression of a person being struck down by fate. Originally, Mahler wrote three hammer blows into the score. But after two personal tragedies – the death of his daughter and his own diagnosis with heart disease – he superstitiously removed the third. This has led to one of the symphony’s most debated interpretive choices: will the conductor include two hammer blows – or three?

Franz Welser-Möst has conducted the symphony many times before, and has been praised for his intense and deeply affecting interpretations of what he has called “a monster” of a work. In 2018, he was awarded the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s honorary title, the Eric Ericson Honorary Chair, and he returns regularly to the orchestra in a spirit of musical camaraderie that has deepened over the years.