Mahler 6

Art imitates life, they say. It isn’t meant to happen the other way around, and Mahler learned the hard way that you should be careful what you wish for. At the climax of his tragic Sixth Symphony, he portrayed an artist felled by three mighty ‘hammer blows of fate’. Not long after he completed the Symphony, three devastating blows reduced Mahler’s family and career to ruins.

That’s the legend, anyway. What is beyond dispute is that this is one of the most powerful – and personal – of Mahler’s works; a masterpiece that embraces love as well as sorrow.

‘A shattering performance of volcanic power’ was how one critic described Vasily Petrenko and the RPO’s last encounter with this colossal symphony… this highlight of our season in the Royal Albert Hall is not to be missed.