You have to wait until the finale for the most famous aspect of Mahler’s tragedy-laden Sixth Symphony – three hammer blows that his wife Alma later described as the ‘three blows of fate, the last of which fells the hero like a tree’. She went on to delineate these as Mahler’s enforced resignation from the Vienna Opera, the death of one of their daughters and the diagnosis of Mahler’s fatal heart condition, though she was to some extent being wise after the event, for the Sixth was, ironically, written during one of the happier periods in Mahler’s life (1903–4) and these fateful blows didn’t occur until 1907. For reasons of superstition or otherwise, Mahler removed the third hammer blow after the symphony’s publication. What isn’t in doubt is Mahler’s complete mastery of orchestral forces, which in this symphony include a celesta, cowbells, whip as well as a large hammer. Little wonder that a contemporary cartoon depicts him in a hall full of instruments, exclaiming, ‘My goodness, I left out the motor-horn’! Joking aside, even aspects of child-like wonder here attain a grotesque edginess, and, following a slow movement where a fragile peace is maintained, catastrophe overtakes the finale.

The links between Mahler’s Sixth Symphony and 64-year-old Edward Gregson’s Dream Song are explicit, with Gregson using a similar-sized orchestra and taking motifs from the symphony and developing them in very personal ways – something of which Mahler, ardent borrower that he was, would surely have approved.

6.30pm Preview
Edward Gregson talks to Peter Davison about the concept and composition of his world premiere Dream Song.

The BBC Philharmonic and Hallé concerts will be recorded for BBC Radio 3. The concerts will be broadcast from 5 April on consecutive Mondays at 7.00pm for 10 weeks.