Symphony No. 6 in A minor, GMW 46 (1905)
(Symphonie Nr. 6 a-Moll)

This new edition of Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony is a part of a large project to replace the old editions of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe by those of the Neue Kritische Gesamtausgabe. It was additionally prompted by the newest research on the sequence of the inner movements. Mahler changed this sequence at the premiere (Essen, May 27, 1906) from "Scherzo – Andante" to "Andante – Scherzo" and never revoked this exchange in contrastto all other opposing statements.

The work's genesis is quickly sketched. It originated in the summer month of 1903 (movements 1–3) and 1904 (Finale) in the composing hut at Maiernigg near Klagenfurt. On September 9, 1904 Mahler announced the completion of the composition to Arnold Berliner. Mahler, who used the label "die Tragische" ("the Tragic") for the symphony in the Vienna performance of 1907, put a "riddle" into teh world around which soon legends thrived. Enigmatic is the gloominess and the devastating hopelessness mainly of the Finale, written at at time when Mahler stood at the positive pinnacle of his life in professional as well as in private respects. Alma apparently had problems tolerating this contradiction and later invented a series of interpretations in "biographistic manner", where she inserted herself (in the second theme of the 1st movement), the children (in a passage of the Scherzo) and purported premonitions of Mahler's own fate (the hammer blows in the Finale). During the winter months of the opera seasion 1904/05 Mahler made the clean copy of the score, finishing it on May 1, 1905. After that, he commissioned the Vienna copyist Emil Zöphel to bring about the engraver's copy. In June 1905, he executed a contract with the publisher C. F. Kahnt Nachfolger (Leipzig) about publishing the symphony, after Henri Hinrichsen (publisher C. F. Peters, Leipzig) had not accepted Mahler's high financial demand. The engraving was started without delay; alreday in August 1905, difficulties with mailing the corrections to Leipzig are mentioned. [...]

^{from Preface of: Gustav Mahler, Neue Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Band VI, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft Wien 2010, Partitur, vorgelegt von Reinold Kubik, EP11210}