Symphony No. 6 in A minor: Tragic (2nd version)

"Symphony No. 6 in A minor" by Gustav Mahler was composed between 1903 and 1904 (rev. 1906; scoring repeatedly revised). The work’s first performance was conducted by Mahler in Essen in 1906. The tragic ending has been seen as unexpected, since the symphony was composed at what was apparently a happy time in Mahler’s life. His second daughter was born during the course of the work’s composition. As Mahler stated in a letter to his biographer, “My Sixth will propound riddles the solution of which may be attempted only by a generation which has absorbed and truly digested my first five symphonies.”