CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Staatskapelle Berlin

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 8:00 PM

“renowned for its rich, ‘creamy’ sound”—Guardian

“My Sixth is finished. I think I have proved myself,” Mahler wrote to conductor (and former student) Bruno Walter in summer 1904. Though created during a time of great happiness for the composer, the work emerged as one of the most profoundly dark of all his symphonies. Mahler later superstitiously removed one of the three “hammer blows of Fate” that punctuate the final titanic movement, fearful they would be prophetic to his own life.

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor

MAHLER Symphony No. 6, "Tragic"

Perspectives: Daniel Barenboim

Program is approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes, and will be performed without intermission.

Sponsored by Chubb Group of Insurance Companies

Program Notes:


Composed in 1903–04, Mahler’s terrifying and tragic Sixth Symphony actually preceded those tragedies in his own life—beginning in 1907—that his wife Alma later associated with that Symphony. That summer their younger daughter suffered a bout of scarlet fever and their elder daughter died from diphtheria and scarlet fever; shortly thereafter, Mahler’s daily life was transformed after the diagnosis of a heart-valve ailment, which eventually led to his premature death at age 50; and, beset by personnel problems at the Vienna Opera, Mahler resigned and moved to New York soon afterward. These three blows of fate, Alma recounted, were foreshadowed in the finale, when a large hammer is struck three times. “None of his works came so directly from his inmost heart as this,” Alma recalled, and after he first played it on the piano for her, they both wept.

Mahler often discussed his symphonies in terms of a heroic protagonist—a variant on Beethoven’s Third, Fifth, and Seventh symphonies, which outline a path from struggle to victory. But in Mahler’s Sixth, the hero does not survive: after the two blows of fate, each represented by a huge hammer blow, the last hammer blow “fells him like a tree,” Alma later recounted. Fearful of the omen, Mahler began to sob and wring his hands backstage before the premiere, unable to conduct with total concentration, and he ultimately deleted the third hammer blow.

The impact of the work was lost on critics at the first German performances in 1906, so at the Viennese premiere, in January 1907, Mahler had the title “Tragic Symphony” printed on the program books. But the Sixth Symphony is not programmatic to the extent that his earlier symphonies were. There is no sung text, nor are there titles for individual movements (and Mahler never again used the title “Tragic”). Even the addition of non-symphonic instruments like a hammer and cowbells, which some contemporaries took as signs of a hidden story, were included merely to enrich sound palette of the orchestra.

Wilhelm Furtwängler called it “the first nihilist work in the history of music.” The tale of destruction is so powerful because Mahler deploys all the conventions of the symphony, only to shatter them in the daring course of the finale. Mahler followed classical form more strictly than he had ever done before or ever would again: there are four movements, each in roughly the tempo, form, or character expected in a classical symphony. However, the symphony's sheer force in exacting rhythm, its great length and complexity, and its novel array of percussion instruments-a tam-tam (an untuned gong), tambourine, woodblocks, xylophone, and whip, in addition to the hammer—provoked scorn and ridicule from contemporaries. In rehearsals for the Viennese premiere, the orchestra members were so resistant to the role of the percussion that Mahler felt compelled to exaggerate, saying that he used only one percussion instrument at a time, so that the result was a new range of orchestral colors, not the mere “noise” associated with percussion.

The Sixth Symphony is also a work of extremes in the character of the music. Three of the Symphony’s four movements are in the grim key of A minor and share thematic ideas. All three are punctuated throughout by a “fate motto”—here, an A-major chord that turns into A minor above a deathly knell in the timpani. The Andante, in the warm key of E-flat major, contrasts in every way with the other three movements. Mahler composed the Andante to be the third movement, clearing the air for the massive finale. But during rehearsals for the premiere he conducted, Mahler reversed the ordering of the inner movements, with the Andante in the traditional position as second movement, and all his future performances retained that ordering.

Mahler composed the work at his lakeside summer villa, and in parts of this Sixth Symphony, he evokes the idea of Beethoven’s Sixth (his “Pastoral” Symphony) in modern guise. At the core of both outer movements lies a pastoral world apart, complete with cowbells. The escape works in the first movement but is heard three times in the finale, only be swept away by the momentum of the urban world and ultimately shattered by its force. One contemporary spoke of its “ghetto” tone, and until the ravages of World War I, almost no critics appreciated its driving march rhythms.

In the opening movement, the brusque opening march gives way to a slow chorale and then a “long and sweeping theme” in the violins, a melody that portrayed Alma, as he himself told her. The exposition of these themes—from the brutal march to the chorale and the “Alma” theme—is repeated note-for-note, a classical convention Mahler hadn’t deployed since his First Symphony. In the central development section, the brusque pace of the march comes to a halt as the skies open up to a pastoral interlude, with cowbells and the heavenly chimes of the celesta (an instrument new to the concert hall, and one that the composer later used to symbolize eternity at the end of Das Lied von der Erde). To create an effect of wandering cows, Mahler asked the percussionist to ring a cowbell that hung from his neck as he walked around the orchestra. A similar dreamlike recollection of earlier themes occurs at various points in the ferocious last movement.

The Andante opens with a tender opening melody in the muted strings. There is a melancholic English horn, an instrument not heard in the first movement. In the upper realm of the pastoral scene, the violins play “like a breath,” just as Mahler instructs in the closing “chorus mysticus” of the Eighth Symphony, another moment where we sense the voice of inspiration.

The Scherzo, Alma believed, represented the “arhythmic playing of two small children in the sand, as they totter in zigzags.” (During the first summer he worked on the Sixth Symphony, Mahler often played with his two-year-old, dancing and singing with her, and during the second summer, Alma gave birth to their second child.) The image of two children playing captures well the character of the tentative and delicate “trio” section, which alternates with the main part of the movement. “Grandfatherly” is the image Mahler wanted performers to keep in mind. The rest of the movement has the same ferocious character as the outer movements. The score demands from the orchestra an “angry” and “whipped” sound.

The finale, usually about 30 minutes, is the longest movement concluding a Mahler symphony (the second of the Eighth’s two movements hardly counts as a finale). To prepare listeners for its novelty and horror, Mahler wrote perhaps the longest slow introduction to any finale—a movement that normally has no slow introduction. After an eerie sweep in the strings, the finale begins with a slow introduction that evokes the very opening of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and of virtually all Bruckner’s symphonies: individual motives emerge one by one, against a hazy backdrop that includes cowbells.

The classical symmetry of the first movement is destroyed: the brutal march and the ebullient lyrical theme return in reverse order in the last third of the movement. The layering of instruments and intricate development of themes and fragments make it almost impossible, in any case, to recognize the individual sections in this apocalyptic build-up of march rhythms, crashing brass, and dark harmonies. The movement is clearest in the central development section, where a large hammer (“strong but dull blow, like the stroke of a hatchet,” Mahler requested) slams down at two points. These are the high points in the movement’s ever-growing complexity: above the dizzying runs in the strings, the brass stretch out one of the main ideas in the movement until a near breaking point. The opening segment of the finale returns twice in the midst of dizzying march rhythms and a third time, only to expire in the bleakest ending Mahler ever wrote. The final, somber dialogue between tuba and trombones, with a timpani roll, evokes a requiem. The Sixth is Mahler’s only symphony that doesn’t end in victory or transfiguration, but the listener is prepared for tragedy as the only natural outcome of the finale’s dark course.

—Karen Painter
© The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Staatskapelle Berlin
Pierre Boulez, Conductor
With almost 450 years of tradition, Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest orchestras in the world. Originally founded in 1570 as a court orchestra by Prince-Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg, and at first solely dedicated to carrying out musical services for the court, the ensemble expanded its activities with the founding of the Royal Court Opera in 1742 by Frederick the Great. Ever since, the orchestra has been closely tied to Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Many important musicians have conducted the orchestra: Gaspare Spontini, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Felix von Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Franz Konwitschny, and Otmar Suitner are just a few of the conductors who have decidedly influenced the instrumental and interpretive culture of Staatskapelle Berlin. The works of Richard Wagner—who himself conducted the Königlich Preußische Hofkapelle in 1844 at the premiere of his Flying Dutchman and in 1876 during the preparations for the Berlin premiere of Tristan und Isolde—have represented a pillar of the repertoire of the Staatsoper and its orchestra for some time.

Since 1992, Daniel Barenboim has served as the orchestra’s General Music Director; in 2000 the orchestra named him “Conductor for Life.” He has led the orchestra throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, and China, as well as North and South America. Performances of Beethoven’s complete symphonies and piano concertos in Vienna, Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo; the symphony cycles of Schumann and Brahms, respectively; and the three-part performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Japan are some of the most outstanding events of recent years. As part of the Staatsoper’s Festtage 2007, the symphonies and orchestral songs of Gustav Mahler ere performed under the batons of Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez at Berlin’s Philharmonie.

Staatskapelle Berlin was named Orchestra of the Year in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008 by the journal Opernwelt; in 2003 the orchestra was awarded the Furtwängler Prize. A constantly growing number of recordings in both the operatic and symphonic repertoires document the work of the orchestra: The 2002 recording of Beethoven symphonies was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque, the 2003 recording of Wagner’s Tannhäuser was awarded a Grammy, and the 2007 live recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was awarded an Echo Prize.

In the Orchesterakademie, founded in 1997, young musicians gather professional experience in both opera and concert performance, mentored by members of the Staatskapelle. Furthermore, many Staatskapelle musicians volunteer at Musikkindergarten Berlin, an initiative founded by Daniel Barenboim. Staatskapelle members also dedicate themselves to working in chamber music formations, as well as in the ensemble Preußens Hofmusik, focusing on the Berlin music tradition from the 18th century. This rich musical activity can be experienced in several concert series held at the Staatsoper’s Apollo-Saal.

Pierre Boulez is one of the most important musical and intellectual figures of our time, currently serving as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus. He was named principal guest conductor of the CSO in March 1995, and served in that position until 2006 when he became Conductor Emeritus.

A native of Montbrison, France, Mr. Boulez pursued studies in piano, composition, and choral conducting at the Paris Conservatory. In 1953–1954, he founded the Concerts du Petit Marigny, a series dedicated to modern music, which later became the Domaine Musical. He subsequently was involved with musical analysis, and taught in Darmstadt, Germany, and at Basel University in Switzerland. In 1962–1963 he was a visiting professor at Harvard University, and in 1976 he became a professor at the Collège de France.

Mr. Boulez began his conducting career in 1958 with the Southwest Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. From 1969 to 1972 he was principal guest conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. In 1971 he became both chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic, a position he held until 1977.

Mr. Boulez’s difference of opinion about state intervention in the arts as espoused by André Malraux led him into voluntary exile for several years. He returned to France in 1974, when the government invited him to create and direct a music research center at the Centre Pompidou Centre. From the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM) sprang the Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the world’s finest contemporary music ensembles. In 1991, Mr. Boulez resigned as conductor of the ensemble while continuing as its president.

The compositions of Pierre Boulez are widely performed, including Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli, three piano sonatas, Eclat/Multiples, Le Visage nuptial, Répons, Notations, and … explosante-fixe … . He has also published five books about music. His awards include honorary doctorates from Leeds, Cambridge, Basel, and Oxford universities, among others; Commander of the British Empire; and Knight of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Mr. Boulez’s discography includes prize-winning recordings of Parsifal and Berg’s Lulu. He has 26 Grammy Awards to his credit.