Composer: Gustav Mahler
Orchestra: Essener Philharmoniker
Conductor: Tomáš Netopil
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Oehms
Catalogue: OC1716
Release: 2020
Size: 756 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Symphony No. 6 in A minor “Tragic”
CD 01
01. I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo. Heftig, aber markig
02. II. Scherzo. Wuchtig
03. III. Andante moderato
CD 02
01. IV. Finale. Sotenuto – Allegro moderato
It’s one of Gustav Mahler’s most pessimistic symphonies, which oddly seems to have anticipated all of his own personal dramas, the end of which sees three mighty blows of fate befall the hero (Mahler), “the third of which fells him like a tree”. Purely instrumental, it is also one of the most original parts of the composer’s opus. He failed to contain his emotion at the podium when conducting the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance on June 27th 1906: it’s that very same orchestra that is publishing this recording in 2020, headed by their new conductor, the Czech Tomas Netopil. Born in 1975, he studied the violin and conducting in his hometown of Prague, before going on to refine his craft in Stockholm with Jorma Panula, the coach of so many of today’s greatest conductors. After winning the Sir Georg Solti International Competition in 2002, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival, the Prague Spring International Music Festival and filled the role of Head of the Prague State Opera from 2008 to 2012. The following year, he became the musical director of the Essen Philharmonic with which he has recorded several albums, including a critically acclaimed Mahler’s 9th Symphony for the same label Oehms Classics.
This new recording of the 6th Symphony was executed during two successful concerts given in May 2019.
The 6th symphony of Gustav Mahler was written between 1903 and 1904, mostly in Vienna, in a period of professional success and private happiness. But musically, the “Tragic”, as the symphony is sometimes called seems like a bizarre reversal of Mahler’s life reality. Or as an anticipation of future tragedies: the death of the daughter, the diagnosis of Mahler’s heart disease and the profound occupational crisis at the Vienna Court Opera. They should soon end Mahler’s short luck abruptly. In retrospect these three strokes of fate were identified with the famous hammer blows of the final movement. Alma Mahler wrote in her memoirs to the symphony: “No work has flowed from his heart so directly. The Sixth is his most personal work and a prophetic one on top of that.” In mid-May 2019, Essen’s General Music Director Tomáš Netopil conducted the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra on two acclaimed performances of the Sixth Symphony. The work was performed almost exactly 113 years earlier, on May 27, 1906, by the same orchestra under the composer’s direction.