Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Symphony no. 6 in A minor "Tragic"

In the existential angst stakes, Sibelius steals Mahler's thunder in an intense performance with the Philharmonia and Lahav Shani. 

Dramatic, poignant and emotionally draining, this proves a benchmark performance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

The hottest ticket in town, as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's new Artistic Partner takes his place on the podium to conduct Saariaho and Mahler.  

Hard driven and, at times, uncompromising ferocity for Mahler's Sixth Symphony, coupled with an engaging and sensitive account of Elgar's Sea Pictures.     

In a pandemic era of chamber reductions, the joy in this Mahler 6 was hearing an orchestra of 108 musicians let off the leash. 

The Berliner Philharmoniker's new chief takes on a Rattle party piece and delivers a thrillingly lucid and focused tour de force. 

An absence of theatricality from a conductor steeped in the operatic tradition: Sir Antonio Pappano and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra show restraint in a classical Mahler Sixth.

Søndergård’s all-consuming Mahler dwarfs some delightful Mozart in Edinburgh

Rattle digs deep for a stunning farewell concert at the Philharmonie, but his Mahler's still reluctant to get its hands dirty

A well crafted, elegant Mozart Piano Concerto no. 23 in the first half counters the passions and tragedy of Mahler’s Symphony no. 6 in the second. 

The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's second performance of the weekend at Carnegie Hall featured compelling Salvatore Sciarrino and a heavy-footed Mahler 6.

Conductor and virtuoso orchestra never lingered, and the audience was riveted by this taut performance.

The Vienna Philharmonic show themselves to be much more than a straight romantic band; individual musicianship shines through Mahler's tragic Sixth.

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts an emotionally exhausting evening of Mahler and Bartók

Jaap van Zweden to Alma Mahler: the Sixth Symphony couldn't be one of autobiographical clairvoyance – a triumph in artistic vision.

Is the very, very good the enemy of the great? It is hard to fault a performance as fine as this – except perhaps against a benchmark no longer recognised.

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO delve deep in Mahler's sixth symphony and provide new perspectives in a thoughtful and impressive world première by Mark-Anthony Turnage.

Sir Simon Rattle guest conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in Mahler's Sixth Symphony at Carnegie Hall.

Pappano and the LSO prove many good qualities in Mahler 6 but fail to elevate it from the competent to the sublime.

Jahja Ling and the SDS gave a luminous performance of Mahler's Sixth, clearly showing his deep love for the composer.

The devil was in the details for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's first Prom this year; even mastering the Albert Hall's acoustic, some unfortunate errors let the side down.

In a stellar programme at the KKL Luzern − one of Switzerland’s most prestigious concert venues − conductor Ingo Metzmacher infused works of Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler with vibrancy and pathos.

A whiff of sulphur shrouded the Barbican this evening as Liszt met Mahler beneath the Mephistophelean glare of Gianandrea Noseda. Sparks flew. 

In Jukka-Pekka Saraste's hands, Mahler's Sixth Symphony is an unrelenting work which left the audience gasping for air at its stunning conclusion.

The late withdrawal of a conductor could indeed be tragic, especially when the work in question is as open to individual interpretation as Mahler's Sixth Symphony. However, Daniel Harding does a superlative job with the Berlin Philharmonic.

The stuff of fairy tales: a true love match. Daniele Gatti has already successfully moved into Amsterdam's royal palace. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Rotterdam Philharmonic in an upbeat rendition of Mahler's “Tragic” Sixth Symphony.

Valery Gergiev conducts the unique World Orchestra for Peace in a devastating perfomance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony at the BBC Proms. A Strauss rarity and a European premier were programmed alongside.

With ferocious military rhythms and relentless waves of sound, Mahler 6 is regarded a dark work. But La Verdi's treatment of the lighter material presented this symphony in an unexpected way.

An astonishing performance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony followed the world première of James MacMillan's Viola Concerto, a haunting mixture of the old and the new. Soloist Lawrence Power joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski.

Another fine season for the London Symphony Orchestra looks inevitable after the brilliantly played Mahler 6 they brought to the Barbican on Wednesday night. With the assured Thomas Dausgaard leading the way in this furious, huge march, the band amply showed its Mahler chops with some scintillating orchestral sounds.

“What makes Mahler’s music like opium,” I once got asked. If you enjoy listening to lush melodies and pompous brass calls in fine Wagnerian traditions, or get stimulated sonically by a large orchestra, you have got a foot in the door.

Two fine concerts from Riccardo Chailly’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra filled part of the space between end-of-season Proms from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. They brought Mendelssohn of refinement and poise to Prom 67 and dark, fateful thrust in Messiaen and Mahler for Prom 69.

The sheer scale of Mahler’s Symphony no. 6 in A minor and the questions of interpretation it poses to performers are such that I’m surprised it appears on the concert calendar as often as it does – no less than twice in the last 18 months alone by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Alan Gilbert.

The third hammer blow of fate has been struck by an enormous mallet on a wooden crate high in the orchestra. The music withers slowly away: after a final crashed chord and timpani roll, the conductor signals total hush from both orchestra and audience for a few moments before the ritual applause can begin.

“My Sixth seems to be yet another hard nut, one that our critics' feeble little teeth cannot crack”. It will “propound riddles the solution of which may be attempted only by a generation which has absorbed and truly digested my first five symphonies.”. So wrote Mahler in letters to the Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg and the Austrian writer and musicologist Richard Specht respectively.

Le chef britannique a fait de cette Symphonie « Tragique » un véritable cheval de bataille. Pour la tournée inaugurale de son mandat à la tête de l'orchestre munichois, il en livre une interprétation sidérante.

Gustavo Gimeno interpreta un Mahler intenso y solemne en el Palacio de Carlos V de la Alhambra.

Kent Nagano nähert sich Mahlers „Tragischen” auf seine ganz eigene – bravouröse – Art und Weise.

À la Philharmonie, la phalange bavaroise et sa sonorité typiquement germanique « à l'ancienne » ont proposé une très belle Sixième Symphonie de Mahler, avec à la baguette un Lorenzo Viotti survolté.

Der finnische Dirigent eröffnete das Musikfest Berlin mit einer atemberaubenden Interpretation der Sechsten Symphonie Mahlers, ergänzt um das sphärische Triptychon Orion von Kaija Saariaho.

Concert entièrement dédié à Mahler à la Philharmonie avec l'Orchestre de Paris et le Finlandais Jukka-Pekka Saraste, pour une Symphonie n° 6 très impressionnante mais un peu plate par moments.

Sous la direction de Jonathan Nott, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande célèbre les dix ans de la Société Gustav Mahler de Genève, avec une Symphonie n° 6 mitigée. Constat comparable dans le concerto de Mendelssohn avec Ayana Tsuji.

Riccardo Chailly articuló una Sexta de Mahler con elemento inapelable del destino como guía y los músicos della Scala respondierton a sus gestos con un sonido ejemplar.

L'Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France et son directeur musical, Mikko Franck, se lançaient vendredi soir dans la redoutable Symphonie n° 6 « Tragique » de Gustav Mahler.

Ces dernières années, on a surtout entendu Mahler sculpté par des baguettes démiurges : celles de Rattle, de Nézet-Séguin ou de Harding. Toutes ces lectures paraîtraient outrancières face à celle que proposait Franz Welser-Möst et l'Orchestre de Cleveland à la Philharmonie.

Große musikalische Konflikte galt es für die Münchner Philharmoniker zu lösen. Neben der Uraufführung eines neuen Trompetenkonzerts von Geoffrey Gordon interpretierten die Münchner Mahlers Sechste Symphonie.

Pour sa rentrée qui célèbre son 50ème anniversaire, l'Orchestre de Paris dirigé par Daniel Harding nous offre un programme choc tout en gravité : Musique pour les funérailles de la Reine Mary de Purcell et 6ème Symphonie de Mahler.