Programme Guide

More often than not, concerts where Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker perform Mahler’s Sixth Symphony are of special significance: Rattle made his debut with the orchestra with this work in November 1987, and when the Berliner and Wiener Philharmoniker, under the baton of Sir Simon, performed together for the first (and so far only) time, the Sixth was in the concert programme.

This may be no coincidence as this symphony reveals the capabilities of not only the orchestra but also the conductor more than almost any other work. In his orchestration, Mahler takes things further than anything that came before. Although the Sixth has become known as the “Tragic”, it lacks any mawkishness. What stands out more are the moments of utter, raw violence which Mahler uses to reflect the brutality of the looming 20th century.

Simon Rattle himself explains the connection with Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra Op. 6 in this concert as follows: “It seemed to me obvious that Berg’s Three Pieces is somehow the child of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. In fact, John Adams said wonderfully he felt he’d heard the Mahler Sixth Symphony put in a trash compactor, so that actually everything was there, but in a much smaller space, in fact less than 20 minutes, with all the lines crammed together instead of being one after another.”